Just a cover
by omegaluffy
Summary: A 12 year old Luffy somehow finds his way to Water 7 and now he's living with two CP9 agents. warnings: luccixluffy, extreme OOC, spoilers for water 7 arc (changed some stuff in chapters 2 and 3 as of august 7 so please at least revisit one of them)
1. Chapter 1: meeting

warnings: bad plot, cliche, maybe underage in later chapters (if i continue this) probably luccixluffy, i rush a lot, ooc

Summary: Luffy gets taken away by his grandpa and gets lost in Water 7, where Lucci receives an order to take care of him.

AN: I think this story is a bit boring so I might delete it later and I'm bad at keeping people in character

* * *

"Hey, looks like you got a new fan."

Lucci looked at Kaku then at the place where Kaku was pointing at. Behind some wooden piles was a shuffling straw hat, and under the straw hat was a tiny, black haired head. Lucci scoffed and waved his hand in dismissal before resuming his work. A few minutes passed before Kaku chuckled and spoke again, "He's still there."

Lucci ignored him and carried the wood beams to the place where they were needed. Kaku stayed where he was and looked back at the boy. The boy, who followed Lucci with his eyes, accidentally caught Kaku's gaze and didn't seem to expect the attention, causing him to slightly jump before hiding behind the wooden pile. Kaku chuckled at the attempt of hiding because he was clearly able to see the top of the straw hat. He didn't know if the chuckle was just for show or not, but it was able to get the little mugiwara's attention. The little head peaked out again, still cautious but a bit more confident. Kaku smiled at the boy when he knew that he got the kid's attention, which was able to make the boy a bit less reluctant to have attention on himself since he was given such a friendly smile. Kaku glanced at the multiple workers watching them and decided to speak while giving a tiny wave. "Hey, little boy?"

Said little boy looked around him as if he was looking for the one that Kaku was speaking to, thinking that Kaku was talking to someone behind him. Kaku gave a friendly laugh that was sure to get the little mugiwara's attention before saying, "There's only one little boy in the shipyard!" The kid looked back at Kaku in surprise, his large eyes swallowing his face and tiny mouth gasping. The expression was very amusing to the shipwright, so he gave another laugh and friendly called out, "Come here!" The boy tentatively slid out from behind the pile and slowly shuffled towards the square-nosed male, whose actions seemed to draw the little one in. Whether it was the smile or the laugh, it didn't matter since it worked. Kaku patiently waited until the boy was at least 10 feet away from him, and when it didn't seem like the boy wasn't going to move any closer he kneeled down and gave him a warm smile.

"Hey! What's your name?"

The boy stared up into Kaku's eyes, finally seeming to break through his little shy barrier with a beaming smile that almost made Kaku coo; this boy was so adorable.

"Luffy!"

He was a bit too trusting and naïve, though.

"Where're your parents, Luffy?" Kaku asked, heart straining at the brightness of the child.

Luffy cocked his head and tapped his chin, eyes staring off as if trying to remember something. In the end he just shrugged and answered, "I don't know."

Kaku gave a sympathetic frown. "Are you lost?" Luffy shook his head and gave another bright smile. Kaku continued, "Are your parents at work?" Luffy shrugged. "How'd you get in here?" Another shrug. Kaku gave a slight smile, yet the corners of his lips were starting to drop. The answers weren't very informative. Also, the boy's parents were probably worried. Maybe the boy ran away from home? "Where do you live?" Kaku asked, hoping to get the address to his home to bring him back to his probably panicking parents. It was dangerous for such a young, innocent child such as Luffy to be roaming such a large city; he could fall into a canal or get murdered or kidnapped, and it seemed that he would likely get targeted since his innocence seemed to draw in the darker souls.

"Foosha Village," Luffy finally answered with information. Kaku tilted his head in confusion.

"Where is that?" Kaku asked.

"East Blue," Luffy answered. If Kaku remembered how to truly act surprised his eyes would've bulged out of his sockets. The East Blue was pretty far from this area of the Grand Line and the journey must've been dangerous for the young boy.

"How did you get to Water 7 then, little Luffy?" Kaku questioned. Luffy scratched the back of his head and it looked like he was trying to remember something, until he suddenly barked out a laugh and answered, "A really cool train that rode on the sea!"

Ah, so the boy was on a family vacation. The sea trains of Water 7 always succeeded in attracting curious tourists and travelers, but a long journey like that must've been risky for the child. "Aren't your parents worried? It's very scary to lose a child when on vacation."

"Hn, my gramps hasn't shown up yet, so I guess I'm off the hook," Luffy shrugged, now completely accustomed to Kaku's presence.

"So your grandfather is here? Where is your hotel?"

"I don't have a hotel, and I don't want to go back to gramps. He's mean." Luffy pouted. Ah, such adorableness was able to brighten anyone's day, but the mention of a mean guardian caused suspicion to rise in Kaku. What kind of mean was his gramps? Was he just mean enough to make the boy dislike him? But wait, maybe he was the reason why little Luffy ran away from home. Did that mean that his grandfather was mean by being abusive? Or maybe Luffy was just being spoiled, like any child, and thought that his grandfather wasn't nice enough, even if he was the nicest old man alive? Well, only one way to find out.

"Did your grandfather, ah, um, ever hit you?" Kaku asked.

"Yep! A bunch!" Luffy smiled. The smile sorta made Kaku think that the boy was lying until he continued. "He would always hit me when I did something stupid and he always says 'I'm doing this because I love you' but that's stupid! His punches of love hurt a lot and doesn't feel like love at all! He threw me off a cliff once, too!"

The phrase "I'm doing this because I love you" gave Kaku an almost shivery feeling; maybe Luffy was being mentally and emotionally manipulated, perhaps even sexually abused? Of course, he shouldn't make assumptions so quickly, but it didn't seem like Luffy was going to get into more detail. And did he say that he got thrown off a cliff? Maybe the boy was lying since he definitely wouldn't be here if that happened.

"What are you doing?" A high pitched voice came from behind him. Kaku tilted his head slightly in surprise; it seems like Lucci has somehow walked behind him without him noticing again.

"Waah, the bird talked!" Luffy exclaimed, pointing at the pigeon perched on Lucci's shoulder. His eyes shone in awe as he stared up at the seemingly talking pigeon.

Lucci's face didn't change from his expressionless mask and let the bird "speak" again, "Who is this?"

Luffy laughed childish delight when the bird spoke again. Kaku spoke for the excited child, "His name is Luffy. Luffy, this is Lucci and his pigeon, Hattori."

Lucci didn't react to how Kaku just gave out his name to some random stranger while Luffy gave a little giggle, "Shishi, our names rhyme!"

Kaku laughed with the young child before the two older men shared a look. Kaku blinked first and looked away as if scorned before Lucci said, "We need you to examine a ship on a harbor across the island."

Kaku nodded and told Luffy to wait for him and stay exactly where he was while he did the job, promising to come back. Luffy yipped an ok and started humming to himself while quietly mumbling "Luffy Lucci Luffy Lucci."

Lucci looked down at the boy that has gotten Kaku's attention. He looked young and hyper, and the excitement rolling off of the boy was already enough to give Lucci the beginnings of a headache. His eyes were large and transparent, showing every emotion swimming in those wide orbs. Under his eye was a scar that looked pretty deep, making Lucci wonder what happened to the young boy. It looked like it had been painful.

Luffy returned the stares that Lucci gave him, except his jovial expression turned into one of caution. The man was tall and he looked like he had pretty strong muscles, making Luffy curious to see exactly how strong this guy is, maybe with a fight. His skin looked like it would be an olive tone if it didn't seem so pale. His face didn't seem to show any emotions except for dark ones and it caused shivers of excitement to crawl all over Luffy's body. This guy was strong, but something made him start feeling that a fight with this guy would be a bad idea. Wariness grew along with the excitement within him as he looked up at the man with untrusting eyes. Instincts within him told him to run away from the dangerous man, but his tendency to get drawn to trouble made him stay where he was, not making a move to go toward the man nor away. Lucci smirked, the only expression would he let on his emotionless face. It caused a pressure in Luffy's chest, and he refused to call it fear. Lucci must have noticed Luffy's predicament before giving one last second of his smirk to Luffy and leaving Luffy alone without another word.

Luffy was about to follow him, but then he remembered what Kaku told him about staying put. He pouted with puffed up cheeks and looked around him at the people in the dock. Everything he saw seemed so amazing to the boy; the large machines, the ships, the cannons! He excitedly wondered if he can get one of these guys to make him a pirate ship, or if they can teach him how to make one so he can make his own ship. That'd make his relationship with the ship much more personal.

He jumped slightly when a loud alarm came out of the speakers all around the city.

_"Attention citizens, this is the weather department of Water 7. Aqua Laguna is approaching and will hit at around midnight. Please quickly find shelter and board up. We hope for everyone's safety. Again, Aqua Laguna will come around midnight. Thank you."_

A flurry of movement went through the crowds of Water 7 as they rushed to board their windows and doors. The commotion made Luffy confused; what was aqua laguna? Why was everyone panicking? Well, not everyone. Some nonchalantly walked away while naturally conversing with comrades saying "that time of year again" or things similar. He didn't move from his spot and loyally waited for Kaku, even if his instincts told him to run towards the nearest person to explain everything to him, but everyone was already outside his vicinity in their rush to board their homes. Luffy fidgeted in his spot, looking around the shipyard that was slowly emptying.

"Luffy!"

Luffy looked towards the voice and his nervous face was washed away with a look of relief. A smile bloomed on his face as he looked at Kaku walking toward him, but he became alert when he saw the seemingly dangerous pigeon man with him.

"What's aqua laguna?" Luffy asked when they were in his vicinity.

"A large, destructive storm that forces us to board up our homes since it causes massive floods," Kaku answered as he took Luffy's hand. Luffy's eyes widened and his mouth transformed into a small "o" at the explanation. Massive floods? As a person who can't swim, this terrified him, but as a stubborn little boy who's determined to become the King of Pirates, he tried to keep his shivers at a minimum. Which he failed at.

Kaku noticed the trembling and asked, "Luffy are you okay? It's gonna be ok, we just have to board up the windows and stay inside. Would you like to stay with us?"

"Th-thank you guys so much!" Luffy shouted with an exuberant smile. "I promise I won't bother... Much." He mumbled the "much" because he just knew that he was gonna be a bother.

Kaku waved his hand and said, "No! It's fine Luffy, we just don't want such a young kid to be out in aqua laguna. It's very dangerous, and we don't want you to drown. Isn't that right, Lucci?"

Kaku gave a slight nudge to Lucci and received a nod from the grouchy man. Luffy smiled widely but was still tense since Lucci's gaze still rested on him.

Kaku smiled back and started walking towards his home with Luffy's small hand in his. "Why don't you help us board up our abode?"

Luffy nodded, wanting to do anything to compensate for letting him stay in their home.

* * *

It was when Lucci was hammering a nail onto a board against the window when his baby den den mushi started ringing. He glimpsed at the other two who were busy boarding up one of the windows on the second floor using a ladder with Luffy on Kaku's shoulders. Luffy seemed to be having fun with all the laughing and chattering he did while bouncing on Kaku's shoulders. Kaku seemed to be too preoccupied with responding to the hyperactive boy and stopping him from doing anything dangerous for him to notice Lucci walking into the home.

He answered the mini transponder snail when he closed his bedroom door behind him, "Hello?"

_"Rob Lucci."_

Lucci recognized the deep voice as one of the three Admirals: Kuzan, also known as Aokiji. Why would the admiral seek him out directly instead of speaking with his chief?

"Yes? Sir...," Lucci replied. No matter how much he wanted to ask why the man directly contacted him instead of the chief of CP9, he stayed silent as he waited for an answer.

_"Your chief isn't important in this request,"_ the man answered as if knowing what Lucci's mental question was, and he even chuckled at Lucci's silence. He most likely guessed that this was his question because anyone would've thought that contacting an agent instead of their boss was suspicious, especially Lucci.

Lucci didn't like being predictable.

"And what may this request be?" Lucci asked, trying to not let the chuckle make him feel demeaned.

_"I need you to find a little boy."_

Lucci's brow arched at that. He was an assassin, it wasn't part of his duties to find missing children nor bring them in if they had bounties. He wasn't meant to save nor capture; he was meant to kill. He decided to voice his thoughts and slightly hoped that his superior wouldn't get offended.

_"This is a request, not a job,"_ Aokiji responded, _"but we can still make it about your job if you don't feel like cooperating."_

Ah, that was sleazy, threatening one's job if they didn't cooperate. Lucci tensed for a moment, annoyed that he can be manipulated in such a way. He forced his muscles to relax before he could break the den den mushi and asked, "Who is this boy?"

_"Ah, I knew you'd come around,"_ Aokiji lazily said, but Lucci could hear the satisfied undertone. _"The boy's name is Monkey D Luffy."_

Monkey D _Luffy_? Well, at least Lucci's job got a bit easier. "And if I already found him?"

All he heard was that damn satisfied chuckle before the admiral answered, _"You take care of him, of course."_

He can feel his surprise sizzling into a pool of anger that churned his stomach and made his veins boil. Did he think he was a joke? He was a highly trained assassin who gained skills in many areas that were able to make him the elite of the elite; his hard work wasn't done to take care of brats. Lucci's anger was starting to bubble but he was able to lessen the fire before it burst in order for his voice to not sound too hostile to his superior. "I'm no babysitter, Admiral Aokiji."

The other's chuckle didn't help him with quenching his irritation. _"You can have Kaku take care of him. He's pretty soft inside, despite the bloody shell he's formed all for the sake of being an assassin. All you have to do is protect him, maybe teach him some things."_

Lucci let out a long breath. Yeah, Kaku would probably be fine with taking care of the boy, but he didn't want to be near the hyperactive boy; it'd cause him migraines everyday, not to mention he'd have to be child-friendly 24/7. However, the prospect of having an apprentice not being controlled by the government would be interesting. Since Luffy had no contract binding him to the government, he'd be able to do whatever he wanted, while Lucci, who had a contract ever since he couldn't remember, had to obey every command. Training him to be some wound up monster and releasing him to the world would definitely be interesting.

_"Don't break him,"_ Aokiji said before hanging up, not even giving Lucci a chance to respond or question his order.

Lucci placed the deactivated den den mushi back into his pocket before leaving the room and eventually the house. Back outside he saw that Kaku and Luffy have found some citizens who seemed to be giving tips on how to board the windows since it was their first time experiencing the aqua laguna. They only started their undercover mission here this year, so they haven't been through the storm either. They heard many stories about what it can do, though. They also heard that Water 7 is slowly sinking, and the difference in magnitude is most noticeable after each aqua laguna.

After hearing more terrifying stories about the destructive storm, Luffy's efforts in boarding up the house multiplied with the fear of being drowned by the floods. Soon the boarding was finished and they went inside right when the clouds and winds started accumulating.

* * *

Luffy was trembling under a blanket with his tufts of hair poking out of the top. The sounds of the storm and water hitting the side of their boarded windows and walls made Luffy terrified with the fear of having the boards broken and water flooding the room. Lucci was sipping some coffee while sitting on the couch across the child.

He told Kaku about the request given to him by Admiral Aokiji, and the man agreed, confident that Lucci knew exactly what he was doing since he was the leader after all. However, said leader was contemplating if this was a good idea to agree to the request that he had no obligation to complete. A pro of this is that there will be a group of people who will think that they're very generous and nice people who took in a poor, abused kid, which also means that they'll have to subtly spread news about Luffy being abused. A con of this is that people will think that the reason why they took the boy in was for sinful deeds. Well, it wasn't like they could leave the boy out there, with aqua laguna happening and all. They'd have aqua laguna as an argument against the idea of them bringing the boy in just for unsavory needs. Another con is the money they'll spend, which isn't really a problem since their job provides them with an abundance of profit. Another is that they might have to live with an annoying little brat. And another is that they'll have to keep up the act of being friendly 24/7...

Okay there's a lot of cons but the pro was very rewarding. It might speed up the process. Even though they were trained to be patient, emotionless human beings, they can still feel the urge to speed things up. However, that didn't mean that Lucci would enjoy this experience.

Then he thought, _this_ is Monkey D Garp's grandson? His frame was small and didn't look like it would ever grow into the barrel-like structure of his grandfather. It didn't even look like the kid had much muscle. He was small and skinny and delicate; overall, he looked weak, which was exactly the opposite of what the D family seemed to be. His eyes were flooding with innocence and ignorance of the darkness in the world, wide open yet unseeing to the world hidden within the shadows. Lucci would've wished he could've had that chance when he was that young, but no. He shouldn't regret the early choice that he's made; there's no point regretting the naïve decision he made as a child that determined the rest of his life, no matter how much he felt regret trying to grasp onto the bottom of his heart. He won't let those greedy hands take a hold of him.

"So," Kaku spoke as he walked into the room with 2 mugs of hot chocolate in his hands, "how did you get onto this lovely island, Luffy?"

Luffy's head popped out of the pile of blankets with a cute little gasp of air before the boy's expression turned contemplative.

_A few hours ago_

"GET MY GODDAMN GRANDSON BACK TO ME OR SO HELP ME I WILL DEMOTE EVERY ONE OF YOUR MISERABLE ASSES."

Said grandson was running and panting down one of the many hall ways of the marine ship, desperately looking for an exit that wouldn't get him caught. Behind him was a group of footmen chasing after him, pushing him to run even harder. Every one of his limbs moved back and forth in an effort to make him run faster and faster, and even if his legs were short he was able to run far from their reach. Finally, he was able to find a hall with light at the end, and right after he burst through the doorway, excitement about being out in the open causing him to shout in success, he bumped into a large body.

"Oi, Garp's grandson." Luffy gave a sound of surprise when he was suddenly lifted by the back of his shirt to a tall man's face. He flailed his arms and legs around in the air while being held up at a tall height. "Your grandfather is looking for you," said the man, who Luffy recognized as the guy who makes ice from his devil fruit power and refuses to make him ice cream with it no matter how many times he asked.

"No! Unhand me stupid marine ice ossan!" Luffy growled, squirming even more.

Aokiji sighed, "Ah, the day would've been much better if we were actually able to take advantage of the nice weather, little Luffy. Why won't you calm down and smell the roses?" Luffy growled and wiggled sumore in confusion. What roses? They were in the middle of the fucking sea and they weren't expecting to reach their destination until a until another few days. His squirming was able to make Aokiji falter his grip a bit, but just when the tall man was going to fix it someone shouted "GIANT FROG!" and the ship suddenly surged to the right. It seemed that a giant frog had crashed into the side of their ship. The momentum of the impact made Aokiji stumble and flare his arms, making him accidentally let go of the boy and throwing him in the direction of the impact.

Luffy made a sound of confusion, wondering why he was flying, before he finally looked down and saw the devilish blue waves of the sea. He gave a frightened scream and flailed his arms as his body sunk in the air and towards the ocean. At 20 feet above the ocean, he heard a loud horn that sort of sounded like a train, but there'd be no trains here, right? Luffy thought about his situation; if he went back to the ship, he'd get Garp's wrath, but if he somehow went to a different ship, he'd be able to escape the consequences of running away. 10 feet left. The latter option seemed to be the best as Luffy looked around, hopefully trying to spot any ship. 3 feet left. He gave a cry of happiness when he saw something moving in the distance and stretched his stretchy arm toward it. When he felt his hand grasp onto something he retracted his arm, quickly pulling him toward the object he grabbed and away from the marine ship. The sea barely grazed the bottom of his feet when he shot himself toward the object.

"GODDAMMIT LUFFY!"

Luffy turned back and saw his grandfather at the edge of the ship, waving his arms towards him with clenched fists. Luffy laughed and let himself get pulled towards the object, wind blowing through his hair and pulling on his body.

"Where does that thing lead to?" Garp asked Aokiji.

"Hm," Aokiji hummed, peering towards the object that Luffy has used as an escape, "it looks like a sea train. The only place that uses those type of things is Water 7."

Garp hummed before giving a hearty laugh, surprising some of the marines around him. "Looks like we're going to Water 7 then!"

"We have a very important meeting in 2 days and we're already a day behind. If we were to stop by at Water 7 and conduct a search for your grandson, we'd be very late, and our ship isn't as fast as the sea train," Aokiji explained. Garp abruptly stopped chuckling to himself at the statement, his expression freezing and losing its warmth. The entire crew was expecting him to throw a rampage at how he wouldn't be able to do what he planned to do, but they were once again surprised when the old man just shrugged and turned around.

"He can take care of himself," Garp mused, "and if he can't, then he'd have to give up on his stupid dream, which I doubt will ever happen." Garp sighed and turned around towards the galley, muttering something about scum of the sea and his poor little corrupted grandson.

"Wooow, sugoii~!" A stretchy boy flailed on top of the sea train, turning his head in every degree to look at the machine in awe. The train was riding on the ocean! His fingers were tightly latched onto one of the ledges to ensure that he wouldn't fly off of the train, but his body was still flying in the wind like a kite. Luffy's laughs were broken with his body swinging up and down in the wind, the train travelling so fast that his face was being pulled back.

Luckily his straw hat was strapped to his neck with a string, but then again, it could still slip off. He decided to stupidly risk it and let one of his arms go, making his other hand strain with the weight of holding Luffy down on the train. He placed his free hand on top of his head to secure his straw hat onto his head.

After an hour his fingers felt like they were going to fall off of his hand. 'Goddammit fingers! Keep on holding on!' Luffy thought, gritting his teeth as he struggled to keep his fingers clenched around the edge. His eyes were closed and his mind was so focused on holding on that he didn't notice the island coming into view. Nor did he notice the train station.

So when the train came to a sudden stop, Luffy, who was still in motion, flew forward and crashed into one of the buildings near the train station with a loud crack that gained everyone's attention. Luffy silently slid down with his face squashed against the wall until he hit the floor, where all he did was slouch down with his face still against the wall and his butt in the air. People were gathering around him and fluttered around him while asking him if he was alright, but when Luffy felt a hand on him, he suddenly bolted up, causing the people around him to take a step back in surprise. The group watched as Luffy's body went from tense to confused. The boy rubbed his face and looked up, seeing the little dent of a small body on the wall above him. Luffy hummed, stepping away from the rubble and making people step back again. How was this kid able to stand up again after that kind of impact? Questions similar to this flitted through the people's minds as Luffy turned around.

"Ne, sorry about the damage!" Luffy bowed, remembering the manners that Ace taught him, before walking away from the scene. The group was too stunned to react, not even able to ask the boy if he needed medical attention.

And then he sees a guy with a cool top hat and is that a pigeon on his shoulder?

_Present_

"Shishi, a sea train!" Luffy used a compact answer, but his usual smile made it seem like he knew something that they didn't, coating it with childish satisfaction. Kaku gave a small smile as Luffy accepted the cup with a "thank you" before sipping happily. Kaku already knew that he came to the island by a sea train, but he had hoped for a more detailed explanation.

Kaku sat next to Lucci with his own cup of hot chocolate. It felt odd since they usually don't acquaint with each other like this. It was usually just shipwright work then government work with the occasional food break and then sleep. They didn't need to socialize, they just needed to complete the job. Socializing was something they can do without, yet here they were, enjoying hot drinks with their new charge. Well, almost new charge. They still needed to tell Luffy that he's their new charge.

"Luffy?"

Luffy tilted his cup down and let out a light breath before looking at Kaku with those large, intensely innocent eyes. It was so heartclenching that Kaku almost grabbed at his chest. The innocence rolling off of this boy was definitely something that needed to be protected.

"How would you like live with us for a while, Luffy? It'll take a long, long time for you to reach your hometown since it's all the way in the East Blue, and you can help the town rebuild after aqua laguna," Kaku suggested, leaning forward with elbows on his knees in a negotiative pose which shouldn't really be used for a child, but it sometimes made the person he tried to persuade feel better about themselves. "You like helping, right?"

Kaku seemed to assume correctly when Luffy hummed in a tone of agreement, but he still had his brows furrowed in consideration as the gears in his brain churned.

Luffy's brain really only seemed to pull a sparse amount thoughts out of the pool residing in his mind (albeit a small pool since he hasn't really had a lot of experience) and they didn't really seem that negative, so Luffy just shrugged, not one to try and pull out any more thoughts from his hyperactive brain. It was usually Ace doing the thinking, anyway.

Kaku's brow arched and he asked, "So is that a yes?" The question flew over the boy's head; his brain has already worked hard enough with pondering over whether or not to live with these guys, so he just shrugged again. Kaku chuckled and accepted the answer. "I'll take that as a yes then."

Luffy hummed and continued to sip his hot chocolate. He could guess that this would hopefully bring a new batch of adventures since it's an entirely new and unfamiliar place. He couldn't wait to explore the entire island with Ace - oh wait, Ace isn't here. The thought brought a damper to Luffy's excitement, which was noticed by the two men who were keenly watching his every action.

"Is something wrong, little Luffy?" Kaku asked.

Luffy shook his head, not wanting to share his internal problems with people he didn't trust as much as he trusted Ace. Thinking about Ace again seemed to bring Luffy into a deeper depression, causing the men (mostly only Kaku) to worry even more.

"How about some food? You must be hungry after doing all that boarding up work," Kaku chirped before standing up. The promise of food quickly pulled Luffy's mood up all the way to the heavens and the stars reflected in his eyes. He got up and excitedly followed the square nosed man, leaving a distant Lucci behind.

Lucci was still sitting on the couch, leisurely sipping his cup of coffee as he listened to the sounds of a flustered Kaku struggling to cook more and more food for the demanding boy. He didn't need to see in order to hear the boy probably eating all of the rations they saved for aqua laguna. He sighed, Kaku was already cracking under the boy's constant demands. Leaning his head back, he wondered if they were going to be able to live through this aqua laguna.

* * *

thanks for reading :)


	2. Chapter 2: after aqua laguna

A/N: I have rewritten something, no biggie, if you already read the chapter and you don't wanna reread it just go to the bottom a/n it says what I changed, it is literally just a sentence that I changed

* * *

"Wahh!" Luffy shouted as he walked out onto the streets that were devastated by the aqua laguna. Pieces of wood and debris floated across the calm canals and littered the sidewalks. People were wandering around, either unboarding windows or picking up debris. Some children were playing in puddles while others helped their families clean up the place. Luffy, who didn't have many other children in his home village other than Ace, felt a deep desire to join the group of children who hopped around puddle by puddle. But Luffy needed to help rebuild the city, not play around! ...

Maybe it'll be okay if he jumped into one puddle. Maybe he can even ask people if they needed help while on the way to find the perfect puddle to disturb. Good idea, Luffy! He spun his head in every direction to spot a puddle when Lucci and Kaku walked out into the world.

"Hm, that was an interesting experience, wasn't it?" Kaku asked when he reached the jovial child.

"I hope it'll be different next time," Lucci's high pitched voice replied, referring to the memory of the migraines he gained when dealing with the annoying whining from that brat. Most of the night consisted of the two older men being bombarded with complaints of hunger and boredom and exclamations of "becoming the pirate king". They didn't understand why the boy was so hungry since most of the portions they saved for the storm were eaten by the glutton of a boy, leaving Lucci and Kaku with a bowl of rice. Sure, they've been trained to survive with only this much food, but they preferred to eat a comfortable and fulfilling meal. The loud shouts of becoming the pirate king were extremely aggravating and persistent and happened every few minutes, maybe sometimes even seconds apart. They weren't able to get any peace until Lucci had the brilliant idea to sneak behind the boy and gently press the pressure points of Luffy's neck until he became unconscious.

If it weren't for Aokiji's "request", the boy would've been thrown out of the apartment and into the storm in about an hour into it. And with all the worshipping of pirates and the sea, Lucci can understand why the marine dumped the willful boy onto him. People with dreams and aspirations can't understand heartless people, but heartless people understand them and they will exploit their weaknesses until their dreams are just ashes of what they used to be. They knew the experience well, after all, heartless people aren't born that way. Other heartless people find them and break them, and the chain will continue forever and ever.

But Lucci's not allowed to break the boy, dammit. Aokiji specifically said that. He just has to turn the boy's head around and morph him into a willfully loyal marine. But that doesn't mean he couldn't leave a few cracks.

"Ah, new guys!"

Kaku and Lucci looked at where the voice came from. Kaku smiled and replied to the greeting, "Goodmorning, Paulie-san."

The man blew out smoke from his cigar and waved at the two men, but he paused halfway and looked up as if contemplating something. "Ahhm... oh!" It seemed like the man finally remembered their names, even though they've been working together for a few weeks now. "Kaku, Lucci, glad you made it through! How's your take on aqua laguna?" Before Kaku or Lucci can reply, Paulie interrupted, quite rudely, Kaku thinks, and continued talking, "Ah, nevermind. Sorry to cut it quick, but we're in a hurry because a sea king got stranded in a canal because of the aqua laguna and we gotta go help take it down."

Lucci's face remained emotionless and his high pitched voice asked, "Shipwrights are supposed to deal with these types of issues?"

Paulie nodded, a bit weirded out by the act of very talented ventriloquism, "Yep. Us at Dock 1 are pretty strong, and the town doesn't really have a militia to protect itself so it's usually us who deals with threats. So, even if you guys aren't in Dock 1, you guys wanna help?"

Kaku's expression showed one of understanding and he nodded while Lucci looked indifferent. "Yes, I can probably help. This guy will help as well," Kaku answered while jutting his thumb out at Lucci in the last part.

"Great!" Pauli exclaimed before clapping his hands together. "Let's go then."

Kaku nodded and looked down at where Luffy was supposed to be, only to see an empty space.

"Eh?" Kaku looked around him, his head twisting and body spinning as he tried to look for the boy that he lost sight of.

"What's wrong, square-nose?" Paulie asked when he saw Kaku's panicking spinning.

Kaku ignored the nickname for now and mumbled, "Luffy's gone-"

A loud, childlike shout sounded off in the distance. Lucci's and Kaku's head snapped toward the familiar sound; they had to listen to that same voice for hours last night.

"Ah," Paulie blew out smoke while scratching the back of his head, "the kid that was running that way?"

Lucci's and Kaku's heads followed Paulie's finger, which pointed toward the area where people were screaming and running in the opposite direction of. It was also the direction where they heard the shout come from.

"Oh dear," Kaku muttered before running in that direction with Lucci and Paulie following close behind. They finally reached the scene, which was actually not that far, and were surprised to see Luffy standing on the sidewalk while shouting up at something. What shifted the surprise into shock was that the thing that Luffy was shouting at was the actual frigging sea king with a bump forming on its head.

"Luffy!" Kaku shouted, quickly making his way towards the bruised boy. He worriedly assessed the injuries that littered Luffy's body and grabbed both of his hands. "Luffy! What happened? What did you do?"

"Oh, hey square-nose oji!" Kaku refrained from crushing Luffy's small and seemingly delicate hands; he didn't want to injure the young boy even more. Luffy continued speaking, oblivious to the offense that Kaku felt, "I was running around and was about to ask people if they needed help when this guy," he tilted his head toward the sea king, "jumped up and destroyed the bridge while I was walking on it. I didn't fall in the water but I was thrown into a building," he tilted his head towards the small cavity in one of the buildings, "and got mad, so I threw a rock at it." His head gave one last tilt to a large rock that looked about twice the size as the boy.

Kaku was relieved that Luffy wasn't that hurt and a bit surprised that the little boy was able to lift that huge of a rock, but mostly relieved. He'd have to get the injuries treated, though. Kaku lifted the bruised boy and carried him with the boy's head tucked into his shoulder. Luffy didn't seem to be bothered with the treatment, in fact he looked pretty comfortable. He hasn't been carried like this in a while since Makino wasn't strong enough to hold his weight anymore and whenever Dadan or her bandits carried him they either squished him to death or dragged him on the floor.

Lucci grabbed the top of his top hat and muttered, "How can all this happen in such a short time?"

Luffy cheekily smiled, "Because I'm strong!"

"That doesn't have anything to do with how you were able to get in trouble so quickly."

"Why do you care? You're a pigeon!" Luffy mumbled as he pouted towards the bird on Lucci's shoulder.

Said pigeon crossed its wings and continued it's part of the act in the ventriloquism as he portrayed Lucci's thoughts, "And you're a dumbass."

"What did you say, crap pigeon?" Luffy growled through clenched teeth. Kaku pat the boy's back while he attempted to reach over Kaku's shoulders to try to grab the pigeon.

"Calm down, please! We have to remove the sea king from the canal so that we can avoid traffic," Kaku said while gesturing to the already accumulating group of sea bulls trying to cross the blocked canal.

"Na, square-nose oji! Can we cook it?" Luffy asked, drooling toward the terrified sea king. He eyed the king, already thinking about the amount of meat he can get from the small sized sea king.

"Haha!" Paulie chuckled and butted out his cigar. "You're a strong little boy, aren't ya!"

Luffy snapped out of his food dream and turned towards the man who spoke. Luffy gave a bright smile, giggled a little laugh, and replied with the cutest "thank you!" ever.

Paulie made an odd sound from the back of his throat and his face took on a red tinge at the adorableness that he was exposed to.

The other two men noticed the odd reaction. "Look's like we'll have to keep Luffy away from Paulie," Kaku mumbled with Lucci nodding in agreement. Kaku turned his head towards the boy and pointed at Paulie, "Luffy, stay away from the pervert man, kay?"

Luffy tilted his head in confusion but nodded nonetheless.

"Eh?" Pauli furrowed his brow but before he could say anything else the other males were already walking away. "H-hey! Kid! I'm not a pervert man!"

The trio didn't turn around and kept on walking, leaving an offended and dejected Pauli behind. He sighed and drooped his shoulders, now that kid thinks that he's a pervert. Well, it's not like he'll be seeing the boy anytime soon if the two men really were going to prevent the little one from seeing him, anyway. Forget him. He turned around, a bit in a put down mood with how yet another child thinks he's a pervert, and was about to walk back towards his residential area to help his neighbors when two long arms wrapped around the sea king next to him.

He yelped, flinching away when the arms started retracting and pulling the sea king with them. His gaze followed the large fish as it was slowly being dragged by the arms pulling them. His eyes travelled up the arms and what he saw will never let him forget the boy wearing a straw hat again.

* * *

It'd be a bad idea to underestimate the boy, Lucci thinks. Even if his mind wasn't cunning or even the slightest intelligent, the strength he contains was a dangerous mess to deal with. Especially with the devil fruit mixed in.

Lucci looked down at the boy who was already able to lift as many logs as one of the men working to rebuild some buildings can. His hold contains just as much logs as the, albeit thin, man who seemed to be struggling to haul them over, but the little boy didn't even break a sweat.

Lucci turned his gaze toward the plates of sea king meat that were cooked and brought outside for the rebuilders to eat. Lucci witnessed the abnormal stretch of Luffy's arms and was actually a bit surprised, but really he shouldn't be because anything is possible in this kind of world; surprises like these just sorta dull down to him. Luffy shortened his arms to normal length and lugged the sea king by its tail before they reached their own residential area, but their neighbors were still so very surprised when they saw a small child dragging a small sized sea king on the sidewalk, and whenever Lucci or Kaku offered to carry it the boy shook his head and continued on with the weight of the sea king. When they got home Kaku bandaged the boy and Lucci cooked the meat, but one sniff of the meat had Lucci restraining the meat-desperate boy while Kaku finished the treatment.

Now that it's in mind, Lucci thought about how Luffy's body looked and felt like when he was being held down. The boy had almost no muscle mass and looked like he was just a couple sheets of meat over bones, which made Lucci wonder where the hell their food went. There was a small indication of abs on the boy's stomach, but his arms and legs looked like twigs that shouldn't have been able to support the rock's nor the sea king's weight. And when Lucci held down the boy's arms, they were squishy and smooth. Not like meaty child squishy, but squishy like rubber squishy. Which brings into mind of the devil fruit that Lucci has figured out.

At first, he thought that having the gomu gomu no mi was useless because seriously who wants to become a rubber human? But devil fruits were always unpredictable. Any devil fruit can lead to something catastrophic. The power of a devil fruit can be infinite if someone's willing to find out the extent of their power. For example, Luffy might have the ability to swallow an entire ship and possibly live if there's no sharp or poisonous objects. God forbid if sea stone handcuffs were on board while it was in there.

The boy now seemed to be having fun and made friends with almost everyone he met, which was a sharp difference with when they first met the small, shy boy. Now the brat was annoying and absorbed all the attention that was given to him.

Kaku was always in the vicinity of the boy and glared at the men that he knew had a tendency to look at small children. He would slam them into jail if they so much as came within 10 feet of the boy.

"Hey, little mugi-chan," one of the teenage rebuilders called, carrying a load of logs like the other was, "are Lucci and Kaku your parents?"

Luffy tilted his head and flattened his lips. Did he have parents? He doesn't know if he had a dad, but he thinks he had a mom. Makino feels like his mom, but he doesn't know if she really is his mom. Maybe he came out of an egg and has no parents. Lucci and Kaku definitely weren't his parents since he just met them. But wait, maybe they were his long lost parents? Luffy shrugged, "Maybe?"

"Ah," another older teen nodded, "so they're gay together?"

Luffy shrugged, a movement that jiggled the logs that were slung over his shoulder.

Kaku, who heard the conversation, quickly rushed up to them before waving his hands and shaking his head. "No! No, me and Lucci are not gay together. Not all men who live together and pick up a child are gay together."

The young teenagers narrowed their eyes and glanced between Luffy and Kaku. "Ah huh? Then why did you pick him up, Kaku-kun," one of them said.

The look in their eyes shot Kaku down with suspicion and prejudiced disgust. Lucci's suspicions were right, the public would indeed question the purpose of their action and assume the worst.

"No, it's not like that! We took him in because we couldn't have left the small boy to fend for himself in aqua laguna, and he would've died if it weren't for us," Kaku tried to explain, but the suspicion in the others' eyes didn't disappear yet so he continued, but with a hushed voice. "And he was abandoned by his grandfather, so he had nowhere else to go."

The two glanced at the boy who was walking away from them, their conversation probably bored him.

"Where did those bandages come from?" one asked asked, totally assuming that Lucci and Kaku were the ones who brought those injuries upon the boy.

Kaku knew that saying the truth would be counterefficient because good guardians aren't supposed to let their charge get beaten up by a sea king if they can help it, and they knew that Kaku and Lucci were strong enough to prevent that from happening. He'll just tell them the somewhat truth.

"We found him like that," Kaku answered in a whisper while glancing at the jumping boy as if he didn't want Luffy to hear about it. Because he actually did find Luffy like that, just not when they first met him.

It took a while but the suspicion started to leak out of the others' eyes and was replaced with pity. Good, Kaku thinks, they're assuming that the grandfather was the one who conducted those injuries.

"Ah, pervert man!"

Kaku and the teenagers turned their heads toward Luffy and saw that Paulie was walking toward the boy.

"Hey, I'm not a pervert!" Paulie mumbled, and before he could enter a 10 foot vicinity of the boy Kaku stepped in.

"Excuse me, but we don't want Luffy to be exposed to your perverse ways," Kaku said with crossed arms.

"I don't have any perverse ways!" Paulie shouted. "I only came to ask Luffy a question!"

"Sorry, Paulie, but you do sorta stare at skin a bit too much," Peepy Lulu muttered, pressing down on the part of his hair that was sticking up, only for it to appear on the other side of his head. Paulie turned towards him with a betrayed expression. Where did he even come from? Before he could rebuke that women shouldn't even be so scantily clothed in a men's workplace, another loud, thunderous voice interrupted him, which unfortunately grabbed the attention of Luffy's other guardian.

"AND YOU STARED AT LITTLE MUGI-CHAN FROM AFAR," Tilestone added his penny with a shout, like always. Damn him and his yelling, Pauli thought.

Paulie choked on his spit when Luffy's other guardian appeared, the ominous aura washing over him as Lucci and Hattori glared at him. The foreman swallowed the spit and his throat felt like it swallowed a rock before he continued talking, "L-look, it's not like that! I didn't stare at him for that!"

Lucci arched his unique brow, "But you still stared at him?"

"Well, yes," Paulie was thinking that he is very much a dumbass right now, "but only because I was trying to figure out what devil fruit the boy ate! I saw him stretching his arms, so… a-and I can't get it out of my mind!"

"Ah!" Luffy stepped out from behind Kaku's leg. "I ate the gomu gomu no mi! I'm a rubber man, everything stretches!"

"Everything?" Pauli whispered after a small pause. Luffy nodded. Pauli continued "Even down there‒"

Lucci backhanded Pauli's head, causing the foreman to double over and clutch his head in pain. "That's enough for today, Luffy. We're going back to the apartment," Lucci said, grabbing the boy's small hand and pulling the boy toward the direction of their apartment. He gave one last glare to the mortified Paulie, who seemed to have realized what he just said, with the paling of his face and widened eyes, before continuing back to their apartment.

"OK, bye everyone!" Luffy shouted, waving his other hand in the air before hopping along with Lucci while Kaku followed them.

* * *

1 week later

"Ah, Luffy, do you have any other clothes to wear?" Kaku asked as they all ate breakfast at the table.

Luffy didn't pause in his eating yet he still stuck his pinky into his nose as he thought about the question. He shook his head while chewing his food, making Lucci scowl at the unmannered and gross actions.

"That's disgusting," Lucci commented, referring to both Luffy's manners and that he's been wearing the same outfit for who knows how long. He used his real voice since they were in the privacy of their own home, and whenever the boy asked why he doesn't use his real voice in public he says that he was cursed to never be able to talk in the sunlight, and that's why Hattori talks for him. The horrifyingly gullible boy believed him and never asked why he couldn't talk in public, so at least he doesn't need to use ventriloquism 24/7. Luffy only laughed and suddenly stood up, surprising the square nosed man but only receiving a side-glance from the pigeon man.

"Let's go shopping!" Luffy shouted, throwing his fists over his head. "I'll even pay you guys back later!"

Kaku's brow arched at that. "Pay us back? How?"

"When I become King of the Pirates I'll pay you guys back with treasure!" Luffy shouted proudly, fists resting on his hips and head held up high in confidence.

"A useless devil fruit like that can't stretch you to the one piece, idiot," Lucci replied.

"Oi!" Luffy shouted as he slammed his palms to the table. "My devil fruit is not useless!" he hissed, pointing a finger at the man who dared to insult his power.

"Luffy you don't need to pay us back we have more than enough money to provide for all of us and more," Kaku voiced, but it seemed like his statement was ignored when no one replied and the other two just continued glaring at each other. He hoped that that this wouldn't be a common occasion because this much tension can be unhealthy.

"Mah! Nevermind you! Kaku, let's go shopping!" Luffy exclaimed before swirling his body toward Kaku. Luffy rushed towards Kaku and grabbed one of his hands before pulling him towards the door.

Luffy turned and stuck his tongue at Lucci one more time before dragging the poor square-nosed man out the front door. The door slammed closed and now Lucci was the only one left in the trio's apartment.

Lucci paused, the light cling of his fork tapping the edge of his plate creating a small echo in the silent room.

Yes, silent room. Lucci never thought that he'd get anymore moments of true, undisturbed peace in his apartment ever since that brat stepped foot in it. The silence spread to his mind and quenched the chains of thoughts that gave him migraines. His mind was finally calm and flooded with nothing. Just the absolute clarity of reality. Barriers unknowingly dropped as every muscle in Lucci's tense body relaxed. He resisted the sigh of relaxation, not wanting to break the silence that permeated the room.

*creak* *squeak*

His eyelids twitched.

*bark bark* *squawk* *bang* "Goodmorning sir!" "Goodmorning" *squeak* "please feed the dog" "I lost the seabull" "don't jump in the water, Lily" *splash* "masks for sale- what a day- bark- how cute- squawk- splashsplashcreakbark–

Eyes snapped open after a few moments of listening to every goddamn noise happening in the block that he resides in. The noises wreaked around his head as if they were fighting against each other and it bothered him. A con of having a predator zoan fruit. He missed silence.

He stood up, grabbed his coat, woke up Hattori, and walked out the door, leaving the deceivingly silent room behind.

"Luffy, we haven't bought any clothes yet and we've been shopping for 2 hours," Kaku said, carrying the many bags of food that Luffy bought. During these 2 hours, Luffy had a blast, going from one restaurant to another with that large, elated smile that made Kaku feel like stopping the boy's happiness would be a horrifying thing to do. And since food meant happiness, Kaku couldn't refuse the boy's demands for food.

"But there's food places everywhere!" Luffy excitedly replied before taking another bite out of his sandwich.

"There are clothes places everywhere too," Kaku mumbled. Whenever they find a clothes shop, there's always a restaurant near it, so of course Luffy chooses food over clothes and he drags Kaku with him.

"Food beats clothes," Luffy gushed with food spitting out of his little mouth. "Have some!" Luffy shoved the sandwich towards Kaku's face, and Kaku couldn't deny that the food did indeed look delicious.

"Alright," Kaku mumbled and took the sandwich from Luffy's hands before taking a bite. He chewed and swallowed the food before speaking, unlike someone who liked to talk with food in his mouth, "Mm, this is good."

Luffy nodded with that smile of his and dug his hand into one of the bags that Kaku was carrying for another sandwich. Luffy found what he was looking for and quickly unwrapped to expose the delicious stack of ingredients to his awaiting mouth.

They continued walking around the shopping district, hand in hand, Kaku looking for a clothing shop while Luffy just hummed some song and enjoyed his sandwich. Until another scent captured Luffy's nose.

"That smells delicious!" Luffy shouted before pulling Kaku toward the scent. Kaku, already used to this, let the boy drag him to wherever they were going. He doesn't know how Luffy does it, but he probably has a sixth sense for food sensory or something. They followed the trail of the aroma and ended up in yet another noodle restaurant, but when Kaku opened his wallet to pay for the food that they ordered all that he saw were some lint and a small dust cloud.

"Ah, crap," Kaku mumbled, searching his pockets for some money, but couldn't come up with anything. He glanced at the food bender, who was still looking at him expectantly, hands clasped and brows arched with that creepy smile. Luffy looked up at Kaku with a curious expression and he tugged at Kaku's hand. The food that they ordered was right in front of them, cooked and packed and ready for them to take, but Kaku didn't have any money to pay for it.

"I'm sorry‒"

"Thanks mister," Luffy abruptly interrupted before bowing his head. Kaku looked down at the boy, and when he felt Luffy's hand tighten around his own, he prepared for the worst.

"What are you doing‒"

Luffy suddenly grabbed the food and ran off, dragging a surprised Kaku with him. They could hear the owner of the restaurant shouting at them and others to catch them, but Luffy's sprint was too fast and soon the shouting faded into the distance and they were safely on the farthest mall entrance from the restaurant.

"Luffy," Kaku uttered, and if it weren't for his great stamina he'd be panting on the floor, "that was the wrong thing to do."

"But we got the food!" Luffy giggled while opening the box of food. "And I said thank you, so it's fine! Ace said it's ok!"

Kaku shook his head. Luffy mentioned the famous "Ace" again, and has mentioned him at random times, but never really explains who he is. "But we need to pay for the food, or else one day we'll be banned from all the restaurants."

Luffy gave a horrified gasp. "No restaurants?"

"Mhm," Kaku hummed and continued walking. Luffy walked beside him, but since he was too busy holding the box of food in one hand and using the other hand to eat the food, he wasn't able to hold onto Kaku's hand.

"One day, I'm gonna have a chef of my own, so I won't need to go to restaurants all the time! We can eat while on the go in adventures and stuff!" Luffy exclaimed while slurping the noodles in the box.

"Well, you won't be getting one any time soon, so for now we have to go to restaurants and actually pay for the food," Kaku replied, grabbing another sandwich from one of the bags that he was carrying. "Hm, no more money means that we can't buy any clothes, huh?"

Luffy shrugged. "At least we got food. Food's better."

"Well then," Kaku sighed, he was really starting to realize the stench that was wafting over from Luffy's overused clothes. He grimaced when too much of the scent entered his nose, and he swore his nose shrivelled a little bit. "Let's go home, I guess."

The two walked forward, Kaku keeping one hand on the boy's back with his other hand occupied with the bags and his sandwich. The walk was pretty calm, with Luffy too busy consuming his food to be able to talk, until they walked into a busy sidewalk, the crowd pushing and bumping into them, but Kaku firmly kept his hand on the boy's back.

"Mister, where are you taking me?"

"Eh?"

Kaku looked down at the boy that his hand was connected to, really hoping that Luffy's voice just sounded a bit deeper because of the food he was eating, but no. His hand was pressed against some random boy's back, who's hair was somewhat similar to Luffy's, but his facial features were totally different.

"Hey!"

Kaku turned around, only to have his face turned to the side from the force of a sudden harsh slap.

"Stay away from my son, bastard!" The lady screeched, face red and fuming. Kaku constantly muttered apologies as the mother took her son and walked away, the son clinging onto her billowing skirt, and then he was alone on the sidewalk.

"Goddammit, Luffy!" Kaku muttered, before he sprinted off toward the crowd to attempt to find the boy.

"Shit," Kaku sighed. It's been an hour and he hasn't found the boy. He's been asking around if they've seen a boy with a straw hat and a scar below his eye, but no one affirmed to his questions.

He's now quickly walking back to their apartment, hoping that Luffy was able to find his way back.

He was a block away from his apartment when he heard a familiar voice shout out his name. Kaku quickly spun around, nearly dropping to his knees in relief when he heard the familiar voice, but he was somewhat surprised when he saw that the boy was perched on his coworker's shoulders.

"Oooi square nose ojisan!" Luffy chimed, waving his arms above his head.

"Hey, Luffy, Lucci, Hattori," Kaku breathed out, walking forward until he reached them and shoved a finger on the boy's forehead, "Luffy! You scared the living crap out of me when I lost you, young man!"

"Mahh," Luffy rubbed his forehead and gave a glare that looked too cute to be threatening. "You're the one who scared me when I lost you!" In reality, he didn't really notice until someone asked him where Lucci and Kaku were, and when he did realize that Kaku was gone he just shrugged and continued marching on. That is, until he stumbled upon Lucci. "Lucci found me, though, and then we went back to the mall, but he wouldn't let me buy any food so it really sucked, but we bought clothes!"

Lucci held up the bags of clothes in his hands from their successful shopping trip. Kaku sighed, he was a failure compared to this man, dammit! He couldn't even successfully buy clothes!

"That's nice," Kaku mumbled and looked at how Luffy was wearing Lucci's special top hat while his own straw hat was hanging on his back. He was absolutely dumbfounded. Was Lucci actually allowing someone else to touch his precious top hat? "Why the hat exchange?" Kaku asked, he couldn't help himself. He was so surprised that someone was still alive after wearing Lucci's top hat.

"Ah," Luffy leaned his arm against the top of Lucci's head while stretching his hand to the top of the top hat, "Lucci didn't want me to squish his hat when I leaned on it because when I first did it he saw a little wrinkle on it, so he placed it on my head and threatened to throw me into the water if I lost it. It must be as special as my boshi!"

Kaku nodded, "Yes, Luffy, that hat is extremely special. So special that Lucci almost beat someone to death when they touched it." That person being Jyabura, another member of the CP9 who was naïve enough to think that flicking the top hat as a joke wouldn't come with consequences.

"Wow!" Luffy awed. And he was allowed to wear it? Luffy leaned his face over Lucci's head so that Lucci could see the cheeky smile, and luckily Luffy remembered to keep his hand on the top hat so that it wouldn't slip off with the movement. "I'll protect it just as much as boshi! That's a promise!"

Lucci only glanced up and stared at the small boy's face before giving a small nod, emotionless as always.

"Yosh!" Luffy straightened his back, extended his arms forward and flexed his fingers toward the direction of their home. "Let's go home and eat the food!"

* * *

A/N: So the only change was that I don't wanna explain Lucci's memories anymore (maybe) so I made him super sensitive to sound for some reason, and if you are reading this story for some lucci being mean and harsh and cold and serious to luffy then i have some disappointment in store for you


	3. Chapter 3: (ツ)

A/N: this chapter also has some changes haha warning for mentions of adultery because ahhahahah (if you don't wanna reread the entire chapter then just go to the bottom a/n)

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

3 months later; Luffy's 13 years old

Lucci's eyes were wide open.

*creak* ... *creak* *snore* *squeak* *bangbangbang-* *rustle* *drip*

He stared at the ceiling, but the darkness of the room made him question if it was actually this dark or if his eyelids were still over his eyes.

*bang* "Ah, yes!" *bang*

He silently sat up, the sheets pooling around his naked torso.

He was mad and felt like absolute shit, more so than previous nights. His stomach was churning with annoyance and disgust so much that he felt nauseous, and it felt like his brain was pounding against his poor skull. Lucci resisted the external signs of feeling like shit, so at least he wasn't trembling or gulping for air. More air seemed like it'd create an even more horrible headache to his over oxygenated brain.

He was mad. He wanted to sleep but the world won't shut up, especially the couple next door. He needed his heart to calm the fuck down, it didn't need to be beating this fast and it was making his blood unnecessarily speed through his veins and it created a ruckus in his brain. Along with the static in his head, it all seemed to add up to his suffering.

Rubbing his eyes with the flat of his palms with a long sigh and a slight groan, Lucci tried to limit his hearing to the sounds around the house. His already sensitive hearing that was trained vigorously, cursedly enhanced by his devil fruit, was able to pick up the quiet snores of his coworker and the shuffling of blankets in Luffy's room. He listened for a while, trying to calm down but his nerves and the churning in his stomach won't stop.

Well, sitting there and uselessly waiting for sleep to come would be a waste of time. He pushed the sheets away and stood up before pulling on a pair of pajama pants. He stretched a little, trying to stretch out the knotted feeling in his stomach, created by irritation at being forced to listen to that godforsaken couple, and he tried to loosen his tense joints. He looked around his room, his eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, and looked at the options he had to occupy himself. But instead of going to the stack of papers on his desk or the bookshelf filled with interesting books, he opted to walk outside his room and go to the kitchen.

"Naa... Hn... Lucci?"

Said man was searching the refrigerator for something when he heard the slow talking voice. He turned his head towards the doorway and his eyes landed on the small boy, small hands rubbing his eyes and his pajamas and hair rumpled. Lucci scanned the contents of the fridge and grabbed the carton of milk before closing it, then moved to a cabinet and grabbed two glasses.

"Why are you awake?" Lucci asked without turning around as he poured milk into both glasses. It was late and Luffy was supposed to be sleeping in the guest room, which now belonged to Luffy.

Luffy yawned and shuffled towards one of the stools next to the counter. "Just felt like bein' awake," Luffy mumbled, lethargically accepting the glass of milk that was placed into his hands. The little boy slowly brought the cup of milk to his mouth and gulped down the cold liquid.

Lucci looked down at the boy while he took a sip of his own glass of milk, leaning an elbow against the counter as they shared their silent moment together. Their times together were never this silent. It always consisted of Luffy throwing out comment after comment or whine after whine, but it seems like being sleepy was quite the turn off switch.

"Where's Hatto?" Luffy asked when he brought the glass of milk down to the counter with a light clink that echoed in the kitchen. He felt the cold liquid flowing down his body and dropping to his stomach, making him shiver and make a scrunched up face.

"Sleeping," Lucci answered. The pigeon was indeed snoozing off in its cage that was located within Lucci's room while his master suffered another fit of insomnia.

"Hatto's sleepin?" Luffy muttered, his head drooping down as he blinked his heavy eyelids down onto his cold glass of milk, brows furrowed in distaste.

Lucci didn't reply as he placed his glass of milk down and took a small pot out of the cupboard next to the stove. He placed the small pot on the stove and turned on a low fire before pouring some milk into the pot. Luffy didn't notice Lucci's actions and dozed slightly, head now dropping slowly while Lucci took a spoon out of the drawer and mixed the milk in the pot. Lucci was always aware of the boy in case the boy did fall asleep and fall backwards on the stool. He rested his elbow on the counter next to the stove as he mixed the milk with his other arm, slowly mixing the milk and staring at the boy, who was now resting his head in his arms against the part of the counter that was on the other side of the stove.

Luffy has been quite a popular troublemaker during these past few months. Lucci and Kaku have to bring him with them to the shipyard because they can't trust the boy being near their neighbor's food anymore. Luffy falls into a canal or the ocean almost every day, and almost every week he gets in a fight with the town's bullies. However, his fights were only to protect the kids that he thought as friends and many adults saw that as endearing. Whenever Lucci and Kaku aren't looking, Luffy wanders off and during those times he has accumulated a fairly large group of friends, and most of the city already knows and loves him. He even somehow gained connections with the Franky thugs using his naturally destructive nature. Lucci and Kaku always try to get Luffy to avoid that group but Luffy always refuses because why would he want to avoid the awesome cyborg guy? Boys can never resist anything related to robots, and Luffy was no different.

Luffy's popularity plus Lucci's and Kaku's independently growing popularities created a wonderful publicity for the two undercover agents, and now the city was almost head over heals with the trio. Luffy's adorable and open personality attracted many fun-loving citizens, Lucci's handsome looks, serious demeanor, and very reliable personality were very attractive to the female population (and some of the males) while his ventriloquism drew in the children, and Kaku had his endearing and nice personality and his sprints through the city made him well known as the "mountain wind". Lucci and Kaku's skills were also recognized and they quickly climbed the power ladder during these months. They were already promoted to Dock 4 in just 3 months and soon enough they'll be at Dock 1, closest to Iceberg's trust.

Yes, taking in the boy was a great idea. Sure, there were some citizens who were skeptical with them and some still thought that Luffy was a sexual toy to his two guardians, but the latter one was completely wrong. The older two men were practically trained to be asexual, even though they sometimes broke the rules in their curious teenage stages. Sex was not important unless using sex appeal for investigations and such, but the government thought of sex just for fun as a distraction so they forbade it. Not like they needed to follow that rule, though, and just because they had no emotions didn't mean they didn't have sexual hormones. But it wasn't like they would rape Luffy. They had more control over their hormones for that.

After a while the milk was finally warmed and ready to be served. Lucci turned the stove off, poured the warm milk into a new mug, and replaced the cold glass of milk next to Luffy with the warm mug of milk.

The sound of the mug landing on the counter got Luffy to wake up from his light doze. He lifted his head and turned his head toward the noise in sleepy curiosity, and he didn't really react when he saw that a mug had replaced his cup except for a couple of sleepy blinks. He stretched his back and yawned with his arms extending above his head, then he smacked his lips and wrapped his fingers around the warm mug. He brought the mug to his lips and gave a sound of delight when warm liquid flowed down his throat and warmed his body, causing him to relax and slouch his shoulders. Lucci went back to leaning against the counter and continued drinking his cool glass of milk.

"Why're you awake?" Luffy asked in the middle of a yawn. A small milk mustache coated his upper lip, but Luffy didn't do anything with it and Lucci ignored it, wiping his own milk mustache with the back of his hand.

"Same as you," Lucci answered while staring down at his cup of milk. He didn't feel like sleeping; he didn't want to go through a seemingly infinite amount of minutes trying to fall asleep, with his eyes closed and noises crowding in his ears.

This was the first time that the boy has woken up in the middle of the night. It was also a night where the noise was a particularly sufferable combination of their neighbors having sex and the usual night sounds. He didn't know why he went out of his room, but at least he was being occupied. It seemed like he's turning nocturnal, a parallel to his devil fruit.

Luffy was now gulping the last of his warm milk and latched off of his mug with a satisfied sigh. Lucci also finished his cup of milk, but then he went onto finishing Luffy's unfinished cup of milk. It'd be a waste if it wasn't drunken, even though they were able to afford wasting a single cup of milk.

A moment of silence passed between them and Lucci could feel Luffy's gaze, those droopy, sleepy eyes scanning every detail on Lucci's face. Lucci returned the gaze, but he wasn't scanning Luffy's face for any actual purpose, just for the heck of it. He observed the tiny nose, the deep scar with two stitches, the dark eyes clouded with drowsiness, the chubby baby fat puffing up his cheeks. Every detail was already committed to memory, after all, he's had 3 months to memorize Luffy's profile and it only took him a day to do it.

"You look shleepy," Luffy muttered, voice slurred with sleepiness.

"You look more so," Lucci replied before downing the rest of the second cup of milk, letting the chills of the cold liquid cool down his frazzled nerves.

"Why don't ya sleep then?" Luffy asked, head tilting and eyelids drooping. "Do you get nightmares?"

Lucci didn't reply as he placed the empty glass down. The sounds of the couple next door seemed enough like a nightmare. Damnit, he hates how he let a goddamn abstract object like sounds stop him from having a healthy night of rest. He felt like a child; he's even drinking milk.

After a minute of silence the boy hopped off his stool and approached the older man. Lucci turned his head towards the boy and didn't say anything when Luffy grabbed his wrist and started pulling him out of the kitchen. He allowed the child to drag him into the living room, and when they reached the couch Luffy let go of Lucci's wrist and plopped down onto the soft cushions. Lucci didn't do anything, just stood there and looked expectantly down at the boy while the boy smiled up at him and patted his lap. Lucci's eyebrow arched at the gesture and he stayed where he was.

"C'mere!" Luffy commanded, waving his arms and hands towards himself.

Lucci just stood there and crossed his arms.

Luffy wasn't discouraged and pat his lap again. Lucci didn't budge.

"C'mon!" Luffy insisted, and before Lucci could escape, rubber arms encircled his shoulders and forcefully brought the man's torso down onto the couch. Luffy squirmed and adjusted until Lucci's head was comfortably resting against his small thighs.

Lucci blew on a hair that flew onto his face during the fuss and looked up at the small boy. "What are you doing." Lucci asked, voice mostly monotone with a hint of annoyance. He would've gotten up already if the boy's arm wasn't still wrapped around his torso.

"Ace used to do this to me when I couldn't sleep, and sometimes I used to do it to him," Luffy answered, bringing his hands to Lucci's face and moving the random strands of hair out of the way. Lucci stayed silent as Luffy clumsily manipulated his hair and didn't show any signs of pain when Luffy's fingers sometimes pulled a bit too hard. Soon Lucci's hair was flowing on the other side of Luffy's lap and Luffy's fingers were now freely moving between the locks.

Luffy let his fingers comb through the silky, wavy strands, lightly dragging his nails across his scalp and gently pulling tangles apart. Such gentleness and care was uncharacteristic for the young boy, who was usually brash and rambunctious, and Lucci let it happen. He stared at the ceiling of the dim room, and he would deny it, but he was enjoying the treatment. The gentle sensations and soft humming calmed his nerves and soon enough his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed. The gentle feeling soothed away the static noises in his mind and he focused on Luffy's small hands running through his hair. A deep rumbling could be heard from his chest, but Luffy didn't notice and just leaned his head back as he continued his soothing maneuvers.

Lucci was at the edge of consciousness when the hand suddenly went slack in mid-stroke. Lucci opened his eyes and looked up at the boy, whose face was illuminated by the light coming from the hallway. Luffy's eyes were closed and light snores escaped his slightly drooling mouth. The stretched arm slowly retracted as its owner snored and drooled away, and soon Lucci's torso was completely free from its constricting hold.

Lucci gently removed the hand in his hair and sat up, movements slow so as to not wake up the child. Lucci was actually feeling quite drowsy himself, and when he looked down at the sleeping boy he saw the tiny shoulders shivering and a trembling breath tumble out of his lips. Lucci nimbly stood up and noiselessly moved toward the closet where they stored the neatly folded blankets. He grabbed a fluffy blanket that looked the warmest and walked back to the small, cold child.

After carefully wrapping the boy in the fluffy blanket and bringing the small body against his chest, Lucci gently lifted the boy, movements tender and soft so that he wouldn't awaken the boy. Who knew what other surprises Luffy had in store if he awakened. This was certainly a surprise.

The man silently carried the snoozing boy down the hallway and to Luffy's room, lightly hitting the slightly open door with his back to widen the opening before walking inside. He smoothly walked through the mess and placed the small bundle of blanket and child onto the bed before standing back, looking down at the small, dreaming child. Drool escaped the boy's upturned lip and his closed eyes fluttered. The boy must be having a nice dream, Lucci concluded. Lucky him. The longer he stared the harder it was for his hand to resist brushing a small lock of hair off of Luffy's childishly angelic face. He didn't even realize it when his fingers brushed against Luffy's silky hair, soft as a kitten's.

He ripped his hand away and briskly turned around. He walked out of the room, quietly closing the door before marching back to his room.

* * *

AN: the change was that Lucci has insomnia because he always hears everything and that prevents him from sleeping. That's all you really need to know and yep, yep. Not really important. Who's even still reading this story and who was committed enough to look back at these chapters when they saw that they were slightly rewritten? And again, Shirsong is an extremely awesome and nice person.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed c:


	4. Chapter 4: Luffy is 14

A/N: So i guess that some events in this story are similar to other stories and I JUST noticed so I'll be rewriting some shit and yeah THANKS for the reviews and the faves and the follows they make my day and sorry for not uploading in so long and be warned, I rushed this.

* * *

_Luffy is 14_

Lucci and Kaku were working at Dock 2 now, performing their duties with a diligence and perfection that quickly got them to climb higher up the power ladder. But something seemed to be missing. Or rather, a little someone seemed to be missing.

This wasn't the first time that Luffy wasn't with them; this happened many times before, but this was the longest time that Luffy hasn't come with his two guardians and it has been around 3 weeks of the shipyard being Luffy-free. They'd think that this would've been a blessing, but with every passing day the tension around the two guardians grew and that wasn't a very good thing when you were the one who had to relay their job to them or ask them for a request. Their braver coworkers (which mostly consisted of Pauli, even though they didn't even work in the same dock) insisted on randomly walking up to them and asking where the straw hat boy was, and since Lucci didn't talk much (and was scarier) they mostly confronted Kaku about it, which was fortunate for them since Kaku was the one who had the most tolerance and patience when it came to the other shipwrights.

Their coworkers talked amongst themselves with the occasional grand question about Luffy's whereabouts, but they didn't really get in the way of Kaku's and Lucci's jobs. And so Kaku was able to continue evaluating the shipments of cannon balls with a peace that was occasionally broken by curious coworkers and Lucci was left alone to his hammering away on the side of a large ship with only a rope around his torso to hold him in the air.

The sounds of the workers building and shouting continued for a while with the panging of Lucci's hammer mixing in with the static. But then he paused in his hammering, his silence not noticed in the noisy activity and seemed to gain the attention of only Kaku, who tilted his head in question when Lucci made eye contact with him. The pigeon man had an odd yet familiar feeling coming from the direction of the entrance of the shipyard.

He quickly lifted his palm and caught the object that was hurtling towards his face, the wind slightly blowing through his hair when the object collided with his palm. Lucci looked down at what seemed to be 3 boxes that were wrapped within a black cloth and then looked down at the direction of where they came from. Surely enough he saw a small body clad in blue shorts, a red Galley-La jacket, and the signature straw hat and sandals sauntering through the entrance of the shipyard.

"Mah! Mama Bull made box lunches!" Luffy grinned and waved before tossing another box towards Kaku, who caught it as easily as Lucci did.

The shipyard instantly seemed to relax as Luffy's presence pushed away the bubble of tension that surrounded his guardians. Workers greeted the boy, though still at a decent distance, and Luffy cheerfully waved back as he skittered through the shipyard and towards his guardians.

Luffy stopped at the ship that Lucci was working on and shot his hands up, giving his coworkers a disturbingly fascinating show of his arms stretching up as he latched onto the edge of the deck and rocketed himself upward. However, his control was still as sharp as a dull knife and because of this he couldn't control his aiming well, so of course he crashed into Lucci, who was in the process of climbing up the rope. Luckily, Luffy had used enough power so that even though their collision slowed his momentum down a bit they were still able to fly over the railing and onto the deck with Luffy laughing the entire way.

Lucci, who was used to Luffy's lack of control, didn't make a sound at the unexpected trip and was able to hold Luffy against him and land on his two feet with Luffy securely in his arms. Lucci placed the giggling teen down and stretched his stiff back that was not unaffected by the harsh collision.

"KAKU!" Luffy hollered, hand adjacent to his mouth as he called for his other guardian.

"Right here, Luffy," greeted Kaku as he climbed the conveniently placed ladder on the side of the ship before calmly walking toward them with a smile. He paused a few feet away, nodding at Lucci before looking at Luffy with a cocked eyebrow. "Does Blueno know that you call him Mama Bull?"

Luffy nodded and a wide smile grew on his face. "Yep! I even got him an apron that says 'Mama Bull'. He loved it! Let's eat food!" Luffy loudly suggested and waved his hands toward the boxes of food in Lucci's arms.

Kaku nodded and the two older males sat against the railing of the ship while the youngest sat on the left side of Lucci's outstretched legs. Luffy took two of the three boxes that he threw at Lucci and started babbling on about what he did today to them with Kaku silently eating his food, glancing between the two males and narrowing his eyes at how Lucci's unoccupied hand rested upon Luffy's knee. The hand retreated and picked up his lunch box when Hattori and Luffy started bickering about something. It sounded like it was about why Hattori didn't get his own box and why Luffy had two boxes. Lucci's ventriloquism skills fooled the boy quite nicely.

But during the past few months, Kaku started to notice particular habits from his coworker towards their charge that seemed to blossom throughout the months. The kind of behavior that one wouldn't notice unless they were trained at least as much as Kaku was.

Kaku never mentioned how Lucci tended to sway closer to Luffy whenever they walked together somewhere, or how the man's hands tended to think that Luffy was the most palpable object in the world. Whether it be a hand on the boy's shoulder when they walked in crowds or the pat on the boy's hair, those hands grew bolder and bolder throughout the year. Kaku believed it began when Luffy was around 13, but he doesn't know what kind of event would cause this.

Lucci's personality was just as cold and quiet as ever, and with his emotionless face Luffy wasn't able to sense the interest that Lucci had on him. Lucci observed him, quiet and something. Possibly anticipating, probably possessive, according to the glares sent to any living being that was in the vicinity of Luffy whenever Lucci was with him. And it worried Kaku. Because the boy was only 14 years old.

Luffy didn't seem to notice the increase of physical contact, unless he did notice and just didn't know what it meant. In fact, as Lucci's proneness to be more touchy feely with Luffy increased, the same seemed to happen to Luffy. The boy would sling shot across the shipyard and land on Lucci, and sure Kaku had his fair share of being tackled by Luffy, but Luffy seemed to think that Lucci's torso was a better landing site. There were also times when they were relaxing in the living room after dinner where Lucci would sit on the floor between Luffy's legs and Luffy would comb his fingers through Lucci's dark locks. The first time that happened, Kaku almost dropped his cup of scalding hot tea onto his lap, but he caught himself and moved his gaze away before he made eye contact with dangerously powerful man.

Kaku has been thinking recently that he should really pull Luffy to the side and give him the talk or probably just warn Luffy to end the mutual touching. No... He'll call Lucci out on his actions, and hopefully he'll realize that the comfort with their most likely temporary charge was a dangerous thing to play with.

"Luffy!"

Luffy paused in the middle of telling another story to Lucci and looked over the edge of the ship. There he saw a small colorful boat that was painted with red, blue, and yellow colors floating next to the massive ship that was under construction in the shipyard.

"Mah! Hey, guys! That's the boat that we built that I was just talking about!" Luffy shouted to the other two men as he waved down at the kids in the boat. Luffy chuckled and grabbed his unopened boxed lunch before turning to his two guardians. "See ya later guys!"

And with that he jumped off the edge of the ship and landed on the small boat, which precariously rocked down and up on the sea when Luffy roughly landed. Lucci and Kaku could hear the volume of the shouting voices of Luffy's acquaintances scolding Luffy for landing so roughly dwindling slowly as the small boat floated away.

The two men continued eating their meal, Lucci grumpily stabbing the slices of cat shaped carrots with his chopsticks. Kaku was staring off at the distance towards the train station. An ominous feeling that rooted into his gut made him pause in his eating and he glanced at the other silent man to see if he was feeling the same.

Lucci continued eating his food and feeding Hattori, but a look in his eyes and the small almost nonexistent line between his brows told Kaku that he wasn't the only one with the feeling this.

* * *

"Luffy! Why can't we go travel around the Grand Line with our ship?" One of the youngest kids that sat in the ship whined.

Luffy tilted his body towards the kid and stabbed the chopsticks, which he's been playing with ever since he finished his meal, in the air towards the direction of the whining kid. "A small ship like this can't survive the Grand Line! Remember, we just made this so that we could look cooler than the people riding in the seabulls."

The little kid huffed while the rest of the kids nodded in agreement. They've been sailing in their ship until only a sheet of orange light laid along the horizon, the sky a clear blanket of dark blue with the faint signs of the stars appearing. They lazily sailed in the canals and waved back to the citizens who greeted them, all their energy spent when playing and adventuring earlier that day. Luffy sat on the plain spherical figurehead, his boxed lunch long gone and his fingers flipping the chopsticks and occasionally drumming them on the straw hat that rested in his lap.

Luffy smiled down at the ship. He and the kids in it worked on it with the help of Uncle Franky and his gang. The gang happily provided them with the tools and materials that they needed and Franky reluctantly gave them tips on how to build the ship in his own cool and unconvincingly indifferent way. It was fun, and each piece of the boat added increased the hope of being able to sail freely, even if they were only sailing in the canals and around the floating city.

He felt a small prickle on his cheek and quickly brought his palm up to slap the offending object. He lifted his palm, thinking that he just smacked a bug on his face, but he was surprised to see little crystals slowly melting in his warm palm. Another prick fell onto his cheek and this time he lifted his hand towards it and gently picked up the object with his thumb and index fingers.

There between his fingers was a delicate and small snowflake decorated with tiny and intricate patterns, the part nearest to him already melting. Luffy curiously looked up at the sky, blinking when he saw no cloud in sight. He hummed, looking back at the slowly melting snowflake with a fleeting feeling of something nagging at the back of his head, like he was forgetting something important, that this meant something.

The snowflake melted before he could connect it with any stray thoughts and he quickly forgot about it, flicking his fingers to get the wetness away and laying back down on the figurehead and closing his eyes along with the rest of his group, each of them falling asleep one by one until the entire ship was completely silent except for the snores of sleeping children.

* * *

"Dammit Luffy," Kaku muttered, his legs quickly moving along the sidewalks as he searched for said boy. "Always getting lost. That boy."

Lucci was searching the other half of the city and it should be around this time that their routes brought them to the same spot. It's been two hours and Kaku's search was fruitless, and he could only hope that Lucci's search was more rewarding than his own.

The square nosed man decelerated his pace into a slow jog when he saw the other man and disappointment made his heart skip a beat when he saw the other man empty handed.

"No luck for you?" Kaku asked, slowly walking to the other man who stood in a seemingly relaxed posture, but he could see the slight tensing in the man's crossed arms and the glare adorning his face. Kaku followed Lucci's gaze and saw a familiarly tall, lean stature standing just far enough in an alley for them to not be able to see their face, but the white trousers, vest, and long sleeved navy blue shirt easily gave away the identity of the man. A lazy, baritone voice slid out of the alley as the man asked a question,

"Anywhere to talk in private?"

* * *

"Mhm?"

The boy slowly wiggled his head, rubbing his eyes against his arms that his head was resting on. His spine felt stiff from leaning over and his butt felt sore from sitting down for so long. He tried to lift his head, but he found that he could barely do so since it felt like all the energy was sucked out of him.

It scared him. He's never experienced this kind of feeling before. It's as if whenever he tried to call to his strength the will to do so was sucked away. And it scared him with how he was so defenseless and weak, and it annoyed him with how every try just made him more tired.

"Monkey D. Luffy."

Luffy's body tensed at the unknown voice and shivers crawled up his spine when he finally realized the other presence in the room. Well, other presences. But one particular presence... He didn't like it. Not one bit. It made him somewhat dizzy but the instinct to run was an overlying presence in his mind. The voice itself was sickly and annoying.

Luffy tried to move his body and was able to twitch his right leg, where he felt a heavy weight wrapped around the ankle. It was cold and the edge was biting into his skin. Luffy made another attempt of lifting his head, annoyed with himself that he was being so weak in front of others. He was able to slide his chin onto his forearm which brought his face up to enable himself to observe the room.

The room was small and dark with only a lamp on the table as the source of light. No visible windows or doors to let in any external lights.

He couldn't see the presences in the corners of the room, but he felt them, making Luffy squint his eyes in an attempt to make sense of them and see if he was really sensing people or if it was the adrenaline making him paranoid.

A small and annoyed tch brought his attention to the man across the table from him. A man with weird straps of leather on his face and messy lavender hair.

* * *

Kaku glanced at Lucci, whose eyes were slightly squinting in suspicion and caution. The three of them were sitting in their living room, Lucci sitting on the couch while Aokiji sat in the chair across from the table and Kaku standing behind Lucci's seat.

"How is the boy?" Aokiji drawled with a yawn.

"Just fine," Lucci answered stiffly, and the room was left in silence for a few moments before it was broken with another one of Aokiji's questions.

"Any progress on him and marines?"

Lucci stayed silent for a while before answering, "We were too busy with our real mission to be able to focus on much else."

That was the truth, for the first year that Luffy stayed with them at least. They were too busy establishing connections and organizing their fake lives, and Luffy just seemed like an added bonus that sped up the process. Luffy implanted himself into their lives by himself, the two men never really controlling or manipulating Luffy's existence while he did the bonding for them. The boy was the one who willingly followed them, did things with them, grew attached to them, and they let him do his own things with the thought of Aokiji's request on the back of their minds as they worked and calculated everything for their actual mission.

The second year Lucci and Kaku didn't think much of the request that was pushed to the back of their minds in favor of completing the mission as fast as they could. They were on a deadline, and they were never ones to be late in completing their missions.

"I see," Aokiji muttered, a disappointed breath escaping his lips. Really, he should've known that the agents wouldn't take his request seriously and he couldn't really threaten their jobs now. Finding the blueprints for "Pluton" was just as important to the marines as it was to the world government, and with the group here making such good progress he shouldn't change anything lest that amount of progress would start declining.

"Would you still like to care for him?" Aokiji asked. "I can bring him back to his grandfather, if you'd like."

"No, it would be fine if he was kept in our care," Lucci answered, nothing in his face giving away the reason he said so and nothing out of Kaku's body language revealed anything either.

Aokiji nodded and he thought, wow, these people are more ice cold than him. He stood up and brushed off his trousers and grabbed his coat that he had thrown onto the back of the chair earlier. "I'll contact you via den den mushi when his grandfather comes to visit."

Lucci stood up as well and led the marine admiral towards the door with Kaku following behind Aokiji. Lucci opened the door and both of the agents bowed their heads slightly in respect and received an appraising nod from the superior.

"See you around." The man waved lazily without turning back as he walked out into the darkness of the night.

* * *

Lucci was writing reports for the week and Kaku was cleaning one of his chisels when they heard loud bangings against their front door.

Lucci quickly shot towards the door with Kaku following him. Lucci paused just before the door, sensing if the person across from it was an ally or something else, and when his sensitive nose sensed the familiar scent of their only female team member and a lot of blood he immediately opened the door.

And what a sight to open the door to. Kalifa stood there with a barely conscious Luffy hanging onto her shoulder, blood pouring from his many wounds and splotches of dark bruises mottled his visible skin. Kalifa's dress was stained with the blood but she didn't seem to mind as she chucked the boy forward. Kaku gasped and the two men quickly ushered the woman and their charge into their home.

Lucci tried to take the boy and the three agents were surprised when Luffy suddenly pushed Lucci away, and he kept on pushing Lucci until he was walking on his own and using his dead weight to push Lucci towards the couch, Hattori squawking as his owner's body was pushed from under him. The back of Lucci's knees hit the edge of the couch and he fell onto the cushions right before his head was shot to the side from the force of a powerful punch, and then the other side with another punch, the anger and adrenaline rush in the punches easily felt with the firm will and purpose in each hit.

Lucci blinked and the room fell into a silence as the injured boy above him panted and coughed. Lucci's blood rushed at the dull soreness he felt in his cheeks and he growled threateningly, a deep scowl darkening on his face, and Kaku and Kalifa were about ready to pull the boy away from the man. The boy groaned before he plopped down onto the couch to lay on his back with his head resting on the man's lap. Luffy grumbled tiredly and with a roughness that was due to his exhaustion he grabbed Lucci's hand and brought it to his head, making the fingers slide between the black messy tresses that were matted with blood and sweat. Lucci didn't grimace at the feeling of peeling Luffy's crusty hair away from his scalp as he continued combing his fingers through the boy's hair, his own pulse calming down as he gently avoided the areas that caused the boy to wince in pain. The boy's breathing calmed down, but there was still a small rasp with every inhale. Lucci looked up towards his other two team members and saw that they already had the first aid kit ready.

* * *

"What happened?" Lucci asked, ignoring the soreness in his cheeks from Luffy's adrenaline-induced punches as he continued stroking the now clean hair. Luffy had every wound treated, and luckily there weren't any lethal wounds or any wounds that they couldn't treat. They took off his shirt but kept the pants on, Kaku insisting that they keep them on. Luffy was now resting peacefully with his head on Lucci's lap, the rest of his body lying limply on the couch.

"I was walking home from a late night in my job when I saw the boy limping against a wall that didn't seem to have any significance. When I got to him he was mumbling something about a zipper mouth and a dog man. I made him sit down to investigate the area, but there were no signs of Jabra nor Fukurou. Then I brought him here."

The men in the room were silent after Kalifa's account. How the hell was it possible for them to be here? And how did Spandam find out about Luffy?

"Mhng."

The three conscious heads turned towards the one unconscious one that was starting to wiggle awake. Luffy's eyes slowly fluttered open, adjusting to the light and blinking to clear away his vision until they settled for a squint as they stared up at Lucci from the man's lap.

"Oh, Lucci," Luffy gasped, his voice tired and exasperated. "You bastard, I'm sorry for punching you. Aw ow." Luffy whined as he rubbed the spot of the bandages that covered the four deep wounds that most definitely came from Jabra's claws. Lucci took the hand off of the spot and Luffy looked down at their joined hands.

"You fucker, lying fucker," Luffy hissed, his words just a small whisper but Lucci was definitely still able to hear it as he rubbed the back of Luffy's hand.

The other three stayed silent as Luffy continued cursing to himself, "Lucci how fucking dare. Ventriloquism? What the hell? Can Hattori really not fucking talk?" Luffy lightly smacked the cheek above him using his other hand, Lucci reacting to Luffy's speech by furrowing his brows even further until his eyes started to squint.

"No," Lucci answered, grabbing the hand that was persistently yet lightly slapping his cheek.

"Dammit, Lucci." Luffy hissed, meeting Lucci's emotionless orbs. "I can understand you guys hiding shit. Everyone hides crap, even I have things to hide. But lying about something like that? That's a no-no."

Lucci nodded and quietly gave an apology which Luffy accepted with a small nod.

"Is that all you're angry about?" Lucci asked, a corner of his lip twitched up for a millisecond in amusement as he released Luffy's hands.

Luffy nodded and groaned, turning his body until his face was smothered in Lucci's abdomen.

"Oh, and here's a letter from your boss," Luffy took a wrinkled envelope from a pocket in his tattered shorts. Luffy smacked the letter onto Lucci's chest before burying himself back into Lucci's abdomen, comforted from the mysterious vibrations that were reverberating from Lucci's chest. Lucci felt and heard Luffy mumble "that asshole" and he couldn't help but agree as he opened the envelope and read its contents, his scowl deepening as he read further into it. The other two CP9 members moved behind Lucci so they could read the letter from over his shoulder, and soon enough their face imitated Lucci's, but there was some amusement on their faces at the sight of Lucci purring like the cat zoan he was.

"Luffy."

Luffy hummed in response and Lucci continued,

"It says that you signed the minors' contract to join CP9."

"Hm?" Luffy mumbled and lifted his head up. "That weird guy said I'd get unlimited amounts of meat if I signed some paper so I did." Luffy shrugged before snuggling to the warmth again.

"Hm." Lucci expected this from the gullible meat-lover and flipped the letter to the next page. "And you fought Jabra?"

"Mhm," Luffy nodded, mumbling something about 700 door keys.

"I'm surprised you survived," Lucci said in earnest. Someone as young and inexperienced like Luffy should've been obliterated by the man who has a douriki of about 2000.

"Thanks," Luffy mumbled.

"I guess we'll have to teach you the Rokushikis, hm?" Kaku suggested, looking at his two other partners. They nodded and looked down at the snoring boy, drool falling from his mouth and puddling on Lucci's trousers. Kalifa crinkled her nose in disgust and mentioned something about sexual harassment before bidding her team members a good-bye and helping herself out the door.

Kaku also bid Lucci a goodnight as he went to go to bed since it was so late and Lucci carried the boy to his room, gently placing the boy down and throwing the blanket over him. He glanced back once at the boy before walking out and silently closing the door behind him.

Luffy laid there, his eyes closed as he thought about the men he met. The man with lavender hair, who introduced himself as Spandam and his new boss, knew more than he should've.

_Ace._

Luffy pulled out the contract that was specially made for him and used the moonlight to read the small print clause about Portgas D. Ace.

_I'm sorry, Ace, I broke the promise,_ Luffy thought, and imagined how Ace would be scoffing in disgust at how Luffy allowed himself to get shackled down so easily.

_I lost my freedom._

_Tbc?_

A/N: sorry again for not uploading soon enough and sorry if it seemed rushed, and since no one has tried to adopt this I'm gonna try to get a beta! So please if you wanna be a beta for me or adopt the story pm me please, and I have never had a beta before so please bear with me. I'm probably turning this into a crack fic with how I'm writing.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed c:


	5. Chapter 5: tomorrow morning

A/N: Hey LOOK it's another one of the bajillion fanfics of luffy in CP9 (there isn't really a bajillion but I wish there was since there is so few) and i'm unoriginal, I'm sorry. I might change this to rated M because of the pedo feels. THANKS for reading and favs and follows and helpful reviews and I'm still looking for a beta or adoption pls ;-;

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tomorrow morning

A slit of sunshine shone through the small crack in the bedroom curtains, leaving a line of light across the desk that Lucci was finishing the weekly paperwork on. His desk was an organized mess of stacked files and papers that contained information that he was able to receive or steal during the mission, though the piles slightly shrank as time went on. He's been working on the paperwork for two hours and his back felt stiff from leaning over his desk for so long. When he finally wrote the last word he stood up and stretched his back, sighing at the sounds of popping and the soreness of stiff joints.

Lucci sat back down and leaned back into his chair, rubbing his sore cheek from Luffy's punches last night. His eyes wandered back to the letter from last night, then to Hattori, who was eating some crumbs near said letter. The little pigeon just kept on eating the trail of crumbs, cooing and ruffling his feathers as he went.

Luffy's eyes shot open before he jumped out of his bed into a panicked stance on his messy floor, somehow not tripping over the mess of bare meat bones among other things on the floor.

_Boshi!_

Lucci's brow arched when he heard Luffy's rushed movements inside his room. He stood up and grabbed the familiar straw hat that was on his cabinet. He calmly opened his door right when he heard the sound of the door to Luffy's room slamming open and hitting the wall.

A blur with dark hair and blue shorts sped out of the room and was about to sprint out of the apartment when Lucci's hand suddenly grabbed his arm, causing his body to get yanked back and disorienting his senses from the sudden stop.

"I need to get boshi!" Luffy whined and started to try to wiggle out of Lucci's grip, but the hold was unrelenting. "Can you let go now– mnf–"

Luffy's request was stifled when something got shoved onto his head. A confused and disgruntled noise escaped him as he lifted his hand to the object, but his mood quickly turned around and he gave a pleasantly surprised gasp when he felt the familiar scratchiness of his beloved straw hat.

"Boshi!"

Luffy pulled the hat away from his head to prove that it was indeed his boshi and a large smile engulfed his face at the sight of it.

"I retrieved it after you fell asleep," Lucci said. It was another sleepless night for him so he decided to go out and look for the boy's missing hat, which was floating in a canal near a familiar boat full of sleeping children. He gave a beckoning whistle to Hattori and the pigeon loyally flew to his shoulder before the man closed the door to his bedroom.

"Thanks," Luffy smiled at the man and placed the hat onto his head. Lucci gave a nod of acknowledgement before silently walking to the kitchen with a whistling Luffy following him.

Luffy plopped down on one of the kitchen table chairs, eyes never leaving Lucci, who ignored those large glassy eyes in favor of cooking the breakfast that Luffy was waiting for. Luffy started humming a song and inspecting his treasured straw hat, the decrease in his energy evident in his slow and serene movements and lack of loud noises. Lucci cooked a hearty breakfast packed with meat to recharge Luffy from his no doubt tiring fight yesterday, all the while feeling Luffy's constant attention the entire time.

Luffy was constantly aware of Lucci's presence, his movements, location. He always kept the man in his peripheral vision. Lucci glanced back at the teen, who attempted to pretend that he wasn't observing the man, and he let his eyes rove over the teen's bare torso that was covered with bandages, dark brown spots mottling the white covering. He'd have to change them, but he'd have to finish the food first. Then he could distract the teen with it.

After a while of cooking, Luffy's attention seemed to diverge from Lucci and partly focused on someplace else, specifically on the scrumptious smell of meat coming from one of the plates of cooked food near Lucci.

"Luffy."

Luffy turned his gaze up to Lucci, eyes wide like a deer's caught in the headlights with his stretched arm pausing just above one of the plates of meat that was on the kitchen counter. Lucci ignored the hand in favor of transferring the food in the pan to another plate.

"Wake up Kaku, then we'll change your bandages."

Luffy disappeared out of the kitchen while Lucci moved the plates from the kitchen counter to the dinner table, noticing the missing piece of meat from one of the plates as he did so. He ignored it and made some coffee while waiting for Luffy to come back with Kaku.

Kaku yawned and blinked at the noise at his door. He quickly slid out of bed and changed from his pajamas to his day clothes in the span of one minute, but he didn't have time to fix his hair or even properly wake up before he had to answer the rapid and annoying knocks on his door to see a happily smiling Luffy, who cheerfully greeted him a goodmorning with a mouth full of meat. Lucci looked up when the two males entered the kitchen, briefly noting Kaku's disheveled hair and sleepy expression (the coffee should fix that) before gesturing for Luffy to sit on a stool that he replaced one of the chairs at the table with while he sat in a chair behind the stool.

Luffy bounded to the stool while Kaku sat in a chair across from Luffy, the both of them beginning their meals while Lucci started to undo the bandages on Luffy's torso. Luffy slowed down and ate more gently at Lucci's request to do so as the man applied ointment to his healing wounds.

Lucci took another dollop of ointment to his fingers and told Luffy to turn around so that he could treat his front. Luffy did so and took some pieces of bacon with him.

"Want some?" Luffy asked, holding a piece of bacon in front of Lucci's face. Lucci stared at the bacon for a second, and if Luffy offering his food wasn't surprising enough, Lucci opened his mouth and accepted the piece of bacon. It must be the end of the universe because Luffy was _actually_ sharing his food _and_ Lucci was letting someone else feed him.

And so breakfast continued like this; Lucci applying medicine and bandages to Luffy, Luffy eating a truck load and occasionally feeding Lucci, Hattori eating crumbs on the table, and Kaku silently eating his food while looking at the two raven haired men across from him.

Luffy was getting weirder the longer they knew him. He knew of Lucci's and Kaku's true personas but still continued on as if nothing happened– as far as Kaku knew and saw. The ginger sipped his coffee and saw Luffy's same old actions, the same smile, the same everything. Luffy still trusted his body with Lucci, the very same man who can do at least 7 ways to kill him with the bandages. He was even feeding the man as if it was nothing, and it didn't seem to matter to him that the mouth that he was currently feeding belonged to a man who killed hundreds at the command of said government.

Luffy was one who valued freedom a lot; it was the reason that Luffy gave them whenever they asked why he wanted to be a pirate. It honestly surprised Kaku that Luffy signed the very contract that shackled him down with the same chains that bound themselves, and the reason he gave for signing it was too simple to be true. Lucci definitely already figured this out, since he for some reason seemed to be closer to the boy and could understand him better. Kaku used to think that he would be the one that Luffy would connect more with since he was more, ah, _gentle_, or maybe more extroverted? But it seems like opposites attract, and Luffy latched himself into Lucci, a justified introverted murderer.

Luffy has always been a very trusting and naïve person. He probably didn't know enough of their pasts to be able to fear the two men, especially Lucci, but shouldn't the teen be surprised or at least feel a bit betrayed that they were hiding so much from him and using him as a cement to their false identities?

"You seem very calm about all of this, Luffy," Kaku stated, his hair miraculously neat in his cap and expression as chirpy as ever now that he's gotten his coffee.

Lucci gave a small snort, knowing that Luffy has never taken his attention off of him nor Kaku. Luffy's muscles were as stiff as a board, ready to spring if he felt that he was in danger. It was like how Luffy acted the first time he met Lucci.

"Nothing much will change, right?" Luffy asked, muscles relaxing under Lucci's hands as he applied the last tape. "I just know more about you guys. Also, I'm a secret agent guy, too! We're a team! Secret agent buddies!"

Kaku chuckled "Always the optimist, Luffy."

Luffy shrugged. He already took his anger out on Lucci's poor cheeks. He was still pretty fucking pissed that Hattori really can't talk because talking animals are so cool, but he shouldn't pick a fight with these men. If they were anything like Jabra, then he was sure that he would not be able to win; he wasn't even close to winning the fight against the wolf guy. It bothered him, yes, but he'd get stronger, and once he's stronger he'd fight them, but right now he had to get better.

He waved another piece of bacon in front of Lucci's face, but before the man could bite down on it, Luffy quickly pulled it away, causing Lucci to bite down on empty air a few inches away from Luffy's face. The unique laughter escaped Luffy and the teen plopped the bacon into his mouth right in front of Lucci.

Kaku felt awkward as he watched the two silent males while Luffy chewed his bacon. His statement was ignored and he felt a little tiny bit peeved by it. He was starting to feel like a third wheel to the two.

Luffy gulped down his food and Lucci glanced down at the bobbing throat. He looked back up when Luffy lifted his hands to Lucci's face and lightly traced below Lucci's eyes with his thumbs.

"Na, Lucci. You need to sleep," Luffy suggested, still giving feather like touches to Lucci's prominent eye bags. He slid his hands lower and lightly pat the slightly darkened bruises on Lucci's cheeks from where he hit them.

Lucci didn't move and watched Luffy's face as the other examined his eye bags and bruises. He in turn gently brushed his fingers against the deep claw marks on Luffy's chest, causing a tingle to sprout from the numbing injury.

Kaku couldn't even cough to interrupt the moment. He was choking on the feeling of awkwardness.

Fortunately for Kaku, the quiet moment was broken when Luffy suddenly slid his hand down to Lucci's wrist and stood up. Lucci was yanked out of his chair and dragged into the living room and Hattori quickly followed them, leaving a neglected Kaku to sulk in the kitchen. Luffy settled himself into the cushions of the couch and patted his lap.

Lucci almost rolled his eyes as he laid down on the couch with his head settled on Luffy's thigh. This happened often enough when Luffy woke up on some nights and decided to lull Lucci to sleep with his surprisingly nimble fingers sliding through his locks. Those nights were the only nights when Lucci would allow himself to let go of his workaholic tendencies (if he actually fell asleep before Luffy did), but he found himself slacking a bit. He completed all reports and side missions, but he wasn't that inclined to gather as much information as in previous missions. Maybe he unconsciously stalled the completion of the mission because of what Chief Spandam would've done to Luffy? The boy knew their identities and can easily recognize them, so there was a possibility that Spandam might've ordered them to get rid of him as a precaution to not risk future missions. But instead, Spandam did the unexpected and made the inexperienced boy join the CP9. The boy didn't even have any training or education of laws or justice. Does the man really expect for Luffy to actually be able to do missions for the CP9?

Luffy's head was already drooping over Lucci's, but his fingers were still slowly and contentedly moving through Lucci's hair. Soon enough Luffy's hand fell limp in Lucci's hair and a small dribble of drool was slowly falling down to Lucci's face. Before the spittle could touch his face, he quickly yet delicately removed himself from Luffy's lap. Luffy fell asleep faster this time than any other time, most likely a side effect from using so much energy from the fight yesterday.

Although, Lucci was feeling a bit tired. He hasn't slept in about three days, and even though he could stay awake longer, he felt drowsy from Luffy's ministrations. So he sat back down next to Luffy and leaned his head back against the couch, relaxing his muscles and closing his eyes. They didn't have to be at work until a couple of hours, so he could probably slip in a bit of sleep.

Luffy snorted in his sleep and his body started sliding to the side until his head hit Lucci's shoulder. Lucci didn't mind, this had happened in some instances where Lucci decided to sleep on the couch next to Luffy instead of bringing the teen to his room and then going back to his own bedroom. He can't sleep when he gets back to his bedroom because his sleepiness always disappears after moving Luffy to his room, so he often stayed on the couch. The teen shifted around in his sleep until he was against Lucci somehow, and by now Lucci accepted the physical contact. Lucci didn't much mind. The warmth they exchanged made him rest more easily, anyway.

"Ma, Lucci."

Lucci looked down at Luffy, surprised that the teen was awake when he had just been snoring a second ago.

"You guys won't treat me differently, right?"

The room was silent for a while until Lucci gave an almost silent "We won't."

Luffy gave a sleepy nod before he nuzzled against Lucci's side and under his arm. Lucci silently slid his arm more tightly around Luffy and brought his hand to Luffy's hair, sliding his fingers into dark locks as the room fell into silence except for Luffy's snores.

Back in the kitchen, Kaku couldn't really say that he was surprised with Luffy's actions. It seemed that the teen was going to keep doing the actions that he did before, and this wasn't the first time that Luffy dragged Lucci to the living room for a nap.

Kaku shook his head and collected the dirty dishes to wash them later. After cleaning the kitchen he looked at the clock and saw that there was still a few hours until they had to work.

The ginger walked out of the kitchen and paused at the doorway. On the couch was Luffy and Lucci both sleeping, with Luffy pressed against Lucci's side and an arm wrapped around his tiny body.

A small smile invaded Kaku's face as the man walked to his room to do some independent reports.

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A/N: it is so boring and short and my wording is weird PLEASE a beta is needed or someone to adopt and constructive criticism in the reviews would be very helpful please. THANKS for the very helpful reviews and I still probably have something planned for this story but I still gotta think about it cuz it has some underage stuff maybe (Luffy might be 15 when romance starts and that is so so young so idk i might just end here if you want? so you can use your own imagination for what would happen now that Luffy's a part of CP9? Writing this is enjoyable, though, and I can still continue, but I will gladly let someone adopt it!) Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6: kisses

A/N: I hope you enjoy! Also, holy shit this is long and I'm sorry

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Under the darkening sky, cheers of partying men echoed from the deck, awakening some sailors who were sleeping below deck and drawing them out to join the party. They didn't have a reason to party, but there really doesn't need to be a reason. Someone just started singing and the single voice quickly escalated into unharmonized drunk men singing.

"Oi!" one man shouted, staring into his empty mug that he could've sworn was full of beer a second ago. He shrugged and waved his mug around in the air. "Hey! Get more booze out here!"

His statement was dwarfed by the sounds of the party and no one paid any attention to it. The guy grumbled and kicked off of the wall that he was using as leverage for his alcohol-induced instability. He staggered between party-goers, growling when some happy-go-lucky elbows and other limbs smacked into him as he walked to the storage.

He roughly slammed the door to the storage room open, revealing crates and barrels of their stock and merchandise. A small lamp was sitting on a barrel in the corner, flushing the room with a golden flickering glow. He closed the door with a bam and rubbed his hands together, his alcohol intoxicated body craving for more beer.

He spotted a bundle of barrels in one of the corners and paused. One of the barrels was open with its cap sitting next to it. His wobbly vision scanned the storage room, but it seemed like he was the only human being inside of it.

He slowly approached the barrel, his feet occasionally stumbling over each other, and hesitantly peeked inside of it.

All he saw was an apple core sitting on the bottom. His eyes squinted and brows furrowed in confusion for a moment, then he just shrugged and went to the larger barrels that held the booze. He placed his mug under the faucet connected to the large beer barrel and whistled while waiting for his mug to fill up, though his whistling only sounded like he was blowing wind out of his mouth. When the mug was shy of overflowing he turned off the faucet and chugged down the beer, then he filled it up again and finally turned around to leave the storage room.

Right when the door closed, a head peeked down from the shadows of the ceiling. When wide, dark eyes scanned the room and saw that it was empty, a petite body stealthily dropped down.

"Woh, that was close," he whispered, wiping the imaginary sweat off the forehead of his mask, apple parts falling from under the mask. He pat his chest to make sure the file was still tucked inside of his shirt. He shoved it in there when he heard footsteps approaching the storage room, and after doing that he only had a second to jump up and hang onto the ceiling rafters silently.

He stretched his long, thin arms upward and bent his waist left and right to stretch his sore muscles. He ignored the stinging pain in his side. Dammit, he should've been more careful in getting these files. Now he knew not to get caught stealing important files. He quietly sighed and approached the other barrels for more food to replenish his energy.

"Ah!" He exclaimed when opening a sack to reveal uncooked meat. His excited smile quickly turned into a frown when he realized it needed to be cooked. He tapped his chin in thought, wondering what he could do. Before he could feel anymore exhaustion from using his brain, an idea popped in his head and he bopped his fist against his palm. He set off to get the materials, all of which the storage room had. He was so glad that he learned how to make these.

"Hey." One of the more sober men outside on the deck sniffed the air. "You smell that?"

His also sober accomplice sniffed the air as well and nodded. The smell of smoke and food invaded their noses and they turned to the direction of where it was coming from, which was not in the direction of the kitchen and was actually leading to the storage room. They glanced at each other and nodded silently before following the scent. They moved forward, ignoring the sounds of men and women trying to call them out to the party again, and they paused in front of the storage room. The door had small puffs of smoke leaking out from the top.

"Ya think there's a fire?" one of the men asked.

"Dunno," the other replied and lifted his hand to the doorknob. He slowly opened the door, the creakiness of the old rusted hinges not even audible under the deafening sounds of the party.

In the center of the storage room was a... fire pit? However the fire was put out, and the burnt wood was sitting inside what looked like a round metallic plate that might've been a shield. Above the fire pit was a barbecue stand that looked like it was supposed to hold edible foods above the fire to cook, but there was nothing on if. There was still the scent of food wafting alongside the smoke.

They didn't notice the door behind them closing. Nor the hands that suddenly knocked them out with sharp finger stabs to the back of their necks.

Luffy, mask pushed up to the top of his head, blankly looked down at the two unconscious men while chewing on the meat that he cooked.

He should probably stop cooking, since the smoke was able to grab the attention of the drunken party people. Luffy shrugged and popped the rest of the meat into his mouth.

The sound of the party getting even more rowdy and most likely more fun made Luffy's ears perk. He longingly looked at the door. He wanted to party, too, but he couldn't let anyone else see him and he couldn't draw attention to himself, and he can't make any noise so he can't call Lucci nor Kaku on his mini den den mushi. Luffy's bottom lip jutted out in a pout and he crossed his arms, sweeping his gaze around the storage room to look for more things to entertain him.

* * *

The window of the apartment silently slid open. A tired Luffy threw his mask off, letting it hit the floor and roll for a while. After struggling with his mission and hiding in a dingy room for the entire trip back to Water 7, he was absolutely exhausted.

He tiredly climbed through the window, or at least tried to. His foot got caught on the window sill, causing him to fall down flat on his face, the sound of the impact echoing throughout the apartment. His loud whining noise followed the sound and he laid there for a while, body melting like goo in exhaustion on the floor. He contemplated if he should just sleep here, but the cold hardness of the floor convinced him that the couch was a much better place for his body to lay in for a few hours. He eventually crawled back upright and sluggishly closed the window before shuffling into the apartment, not noticing the small smears of blood staining the floor where he had lain.

Luffy slithered through the dark apartment till he stumbled into the living room and jumped face down onto the couch, his body tensing at the sore feeling the action brought. He nuzzled his head into the soft cushions and exhaled heavily through his nose, trying to relax all his muscles. It felt so nice to release the tension in his body.

After a while of no sounds except for his breathing he heard footsteps approaching him, but he made no move to acknowledge them and continued acting like a rock on the couch. He sensed a body crouching near him and sighed when he felt Lucci's familiar fingers carding through his sweaty hair.

Luffy groaned and lifted his body high enough to lean against his elbow and lift his torso off the couch. He unzipped his black jacket and slipped his hand into the collar of his shirt, struggling to pull a file out and throwing it on the floor when he succeeded. He promptly plopped back down and burrowed his head into his folded arms. He heard the sound of rustling paper before he felt a finger tap his head. Luffy lifted his upper body again long enough for Lucci to sit in the space he vacated and then he dropped his head back down onto Lucci's thigh.

The hand returned to his head and played with his short hair, lightly rubbing its fingertips against Luffy's sweat-dried scalp. Luffy cut his hair when he started to do missions, keeping it short and cropped. Even when it was cut to only about 1 inch long, his hair was still wild and dark locks stubbornly popped up in random directions like he just woke up. The people of Water 7 wondered why Luffy got a haircut all of the sudden, but they didn't bother him about it and many just complimented it. It was his hair and he could do what he wants with it. What bothered the citizens the most, though, was when Luffy stopped wearing his trademark straw hat. Whenever they asked why he stopped, he'd only give the asker a bright smile and say that boshi was taking a break for now. They didn't understand what that meant and since that was his only response the people eventually stopped asking. He was still the same ol' Luffy, anyway, always so cheerful and optimistic and straight-forward.

Even though Luffy was now part of the CP9, he didn't do much for the mission in Water 7. Luckily, he doesn't like to give information of himself until he's asked (unless he's babbling on about his life to Lucci), and no one in Water 7 knew about the CP9 so no one would ever ask him about it. Sometimes he'd slip up and say "I was on a mission" when people asked why he was gone for a few days, but his aloofness usually got it to play off as one of his mystery pirating adventures. The first time it happened Kaku nearly got a heart attack, but he calmed down when the citizens just laughed along with Luffy and assumed that he was talking about pirating. Luffy just seemed to have that ability to draw people in and place blindfolds over their eyes. He was trusted so much. Maybe because the citizens thought that he was too innocent and naïve to do anything that they deemed wrong. Not that what Luffy was doing for the CP9 was _too_ wrong, since he hasn't been assigned to kill anyone yet. All he had to do was gather information that the government deemed useful.

Lucci narrowed his eyes as he looked over the file. There was a small patch of dark stains on the bottom corner of it, and a familiar coppery smell wafted from it. He threw the file down onto the table after looking it over, knowing that the loud slap of it hitting the table wouldn't awaken Luffy. It might've woken Kaku, though, but the square nosed man should've already been awakened when Luffy did that loud faceplant.

Lucci looked down at the boy's face. He could see the redness in Luffy's cheeks caused by the impact of the faceplant. He looked over the rest of Luffy's body, examining the black uniform for any blood and inspecting the visible skin for any cuts or bruises. Lucci gently turned Luffy's body around so that he was laying on his back. His nose twitched as a familiar scent hit his nose and deft fingers pulled apart Luffy's black zip-up hoodie. There, on the bottom right side of Luffy's white shirt, was a large stain of blood. He carefully untucked the shirt from Luffy's black joggers and lifted the shirt to let his eyes rove over Luffy's small yet strong chest and down his firm abdomen. He tsked at the poorly wrapped bandages and the amount of paper cuts littering the torso.

Lucci pulled Luffy onto his lap and hooked his arms around Luffy's back and legs. He slowly stood up with the sleeping male in his arms, Luffy's head lolling onto Lucci's chest. Even though Luffy grew quite a lot since they met, carrying him still felt like lifting a feather. Lucci made his way to the bathroom, where the first aid kit was. He entered the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He leaned Luffy's body against his chest while settling him on his lap, and once he was sure that Luffy wouldn't slip off he went to work on treating Luffy's wounds. After the delicate removal of Luffy's jacket, shirt and the badly applied bandages, Lucci stopped the minimal amount of bleeding and carefully cleaned the injury before applying ointment to what looked like a minor stab wound in Luffy's side. He paused every time Luffy flinched, but Luffy let out a sigh of relief when the ointment numbed the stinging pain and brought a refreshing coolness to his body.

Lucci taped the wound together and placed a sterilized gauze on it before appropriately wrapping it with the bandages, going slower every time Luffy grimaced and winced. After the largest wound was properly treated, Lucci gave each paper cut a light layer of ointment. By the time he finished, Luffy's limbs somehow twisted and shifted around until his legs were around Lucci's waist while his arms lay limply by his sides. After putting the shirt back onto the sleepy Luffy, Lucci wrapped the droopy arms around his neck and tenderly wrapped his own arms underneath Luffy to carry the snoozing boy back into the living room.

He sat down on the couch with Luffy on his lap and was about to lay Luffy back down when the arms around his neck tightened. Heedful eyes stared as sleepy eyes slowly and tiredly blinked.

"Go back to sleep," Lucci said quietly, bringing his hand up to play with the hairs at the back of Luffy's neck.

Luffy slightly shook his head and straightened his body, twisting himself until his body was against Lucci's. Luffy's eyes may have been fluttering languidly, but his gaze seemed burning and fixated on Lucci's. After a moment of silence with only the sound of their mingling breaths, Lucci arched his brow in regard to the intensity in Luffy's staring.

Luffy bopped his forehead against Lucci's, his wide eyes never leaving very alert ones. He gave no warning when he suddenly pressed his face forward and closed the distance between their faces.

Lucci closed his eyes when soft yet somewhat dry lips pressed a kiss on his nose.

"Thanks Lucci," Luffy mumbled before dropping his head on Lucci's shoulder. Lucci sighed when he heard the light snores and continued petting Luffy's hair. After Luffy's third mission, he started thanking Lucci by giving a little peck to anywhere on his face except for his lips. Lucci never questioned him for it, since Lucci saw him do it to other people too (which fervently irritated him to no end and made him wonder where the hell Luffy learned it, and he always scolded Luffy whenever he did kiss some random person as thanks because what if he kissed a gross pervert that could kidnap him?) He still had to get used to it, though.

Lucci wrapped both of them in a blanket and slid an arm around the thin waist before leaning his head back and waiting for sleep to finally overcome him, a light vibration reverberating from his chest.

Luffy yawned when he heard a door opening. He sat up and stretched his arms above him, groaning at the feeling of his sore muscles being stretched. His brain wasn't awake enough to noticed the body shifting underneath him.

"Ah, Luffy, you're back! How was your mission?" Luffy turned around towards the voice, blinking his eyes to try to flick away the sleepiness.

Luffy silently stared at the other man for a while until the rectangular nose and orange hair got registered into his brain. "Kaku? Why're you up so early?" Luffy asked and then his drowsy mind processed the question. "Ah, uh, good?"

Kaku chuckled as he walked towards the kitchen. "That's good, and 8 am isn't that early!"

Luffy tilted his head. 8 am already? He looked towards the window and saw that the sky was already a light blue and that the sun was shining. He could've sworn that it was night time just a second ago. It felt like he only had a blink of sleep and he didn't want to wake up for the day just yet.

Luffy looked down when he felt someone grab his waist. He looked up from the hands and saw that they belonged to Lucci.

"Goodmorning!" Luffy chirped and gave Lucci a bright smile that could rival the morning sun.

"Morning" Lucci replied. Luffy cocked his head and made little noises in confusion when he felt Lucci lift him up by his waist and place him onto the couch. Lucci stood up to go to the kitchen as well until Luffy suddenly wrapped his arms around Lucci's torso and forced him to lay on his back on the couch.

"Luffy let me go" Lucci growled after Luffy crawled onto his torso and settled there.

Lucci glared at the ceiling and sighed as he listened to the snores coming from the teen on top of him. While he could easily just shove him off, it was likely that Luffy would just drag him back to the couch and maybe wrap his limbs around him so that he wouldn't escape. Not like he didn't like the familiar pressure and warmth he felt from the sleeping form on top of him.

The chest that Luffy was laying on belonged to a dangerous man, and with the amount of comfort that Luffy held in contact with him, Lucci often wondered if Luffy underestimated his terrifying and brutal strength or if he was just brave enough to hold him close despite the danger. He liked to think it was the latter.

"Oi," Lucci smacked Luffy's head and the boy lazily swatted his hand away. The hit didn't have any affect. Lucci peered down at the small body, seemingly so delicate yet strong enough to last in a decently long spar with him. Lucci truly enjoyed those spars; the spark in Luffy's eyes and his will to not give up until he can't even move made Lucci curious and excited to see his limit. He would never mention his fondness for the boy out loud, but not even that would allow Lucci to show Luffy any mercy. Especially during training. He remembered the many times Luffy had to wear concealing outfits because he was covered with bandages from neck to toe.

Lucci exhaled heavily through his nose and ran his fingers through Luffy's hair. Even when Lucci gave him so much pain, Luffy persisted in showering Lucci with affection and comfort, saying that he forgave him because he knew that Lucci only gave him this pain to make him stronger. But, watching the energy slowly draining from Luffy's face little by little or the smell of his tangy blood wafting through the air aroused his inner sadist and he couldn't stop until Luffy was a panting mess on the floor, and the excitement during the process created a knot in Lucci's stomach. Sometimes, Lucci felt like he was taking advantage of Luffy's forgiving and stubborn personality.

He leaned his head back and let out a sigh, making Luffy squirm when his chest steeply rose and fell. He'd let Luffy rest there until breakfast was ready.

After a few minutes of Luffy snoring on the purring chest and Lucci possessively wrapping his arms around Luffy's waist, Kaku shouted to them from the kitchen. "Breakfast is ready!" The next second, Luffy was up and shouting at Kaku for food in the kitchen. Lucci frowned down at the empty space on his chest before getting up from the couch and following Luffy into the kitchen.

The table was covered in glorious food and Luffy made sure to consume everything he can while Kaku and Lucci did their best to get at least a small portion of food for themselves. Breakfast usually wasn't this full of food because they're trying to get Luffy used to proportioning his food, so Luffy took every advantage to this special breakfast and yanked everything into his mouth, almost accidentally eating Hattori. Hattori, who woke up and flew out of his cage to join the meal, was contently eating the crumbs that Luffy's messy eating habits left. Luffy's respect for Hattori dropped a bit when he realized that he couldn't talk, until they put a tie on the little pigeon. Luffy liked how cool Hattori looked after the bird started wearing the tie.

"Ma, Luffy," Kaku said. Luffy didn't pause his eating but gave Kaku his attention. "Are you okay?" Kaku asked, his eyes focused on the blood on the bottom of Luffy's shirt.

Luffy glanced up at Kaku and followed his gaze. "Ah! Yeah, I'm great! Lucci treated me so I'm all good."

Kaku nodded "Okay, that's good. Also, this was your 8th successful mission! Which island would you like to visit next?"

Luffy gasped and turned his face towards Kaku, eyes glittering with excitement and mouth agape and full of food. After every mission, Lucci and Kaku would bring Luffy to one of the islands connected to Water 7 as a reward. Lucci thought that it was indulgent of them and that they were spoiling Luffy too much, but then again, they always felt like the success of a mission was enough of a reward. Luffy seemed to think differently.

He whined for some sort of reward after his first successful mission, even though he had Lucci holding his hand and constantly helping him throughout the entire thing. After being rejected, the teen pouted and sulked, not talking at all and closing himself off, making the city worry about him and become suspicious of the two adults caring for him. After the eighth worried citizen, mostly children, came to their door after many others who either asked what was wrong or accused them for doing wrong, Lucci and Kaku relented and gave Luffy a reward. Luffy would've accepted a simple extra piece of meat in all of his meals or maybe a week without training as a good enough reward, but Lucci thought that those rewards weren't disciplinary enough and would be counterefficient to his progress. So they decided to bring Luffy to one of the islands connected to Water 7 via sea train.

"Pucci!" Luffy cheered.

Kaku chuckled while Lucci gave a sigh. "Luffy you always choose Pucci," Lucci drawled.

"Dey haff gweat food," Luffy answered with his mouth full.

Lucci nodded in acceptance, knowing that food would always sway Luffy's choices. "Fine. Finish your reports first. And take a shower."

Luffy nodded with puffed up cheeks full of food. "Help me with the reports."

Lucci's brow arched, Luffy should be able to do them on his own by now, but he nodded nonetheless. Kaku chuckled, Lucci was indulgent for Luffy no matter how much he denied and resisted. He silenced right away when Lucci gave him a scathing glare.

After the table was cleansed of food, Luffy helped Lucci and Kaku clean up the kitchen and dragged Lucci to his room afterward. When they reached his room, Lucci scowled at the mess of naked meat bones and clothes on the floor.

"Clean this up," Lucci ordered, sternly standing at the doorway with crossed arms.

"But the reports!" Luffy complained, too lazy to do both chores.

"Either clean this up or you'll have to choose between five 'special' push ups or fifteen minutes of being hunted," Lucci threatened. Luffy let out a prolonged whine and stood up to do what he said, not wanting to do the 'special' push ups, which involve seastone handcuffs, nor the five minutes of being hunted, which involve five minutes of Lucci chasing him around and showing no mercy.

Luffy gave little whining noises while he cleaned, which was just gathering up the meat bones and throwing them out the window and piling all the clothes into his closet. It wasn't what Lucci preferred, but at least the room looked a bit more clearer. Lucci picked up Luffy's bug catcher net and examined it while Luffy 'cleaned'.

Luffy reached under his bed and grabbed the box that contained blank documents, not once glancing at the straw hat next to it, before jumping onto the bed. Lucci settled down next to him on the bed and the two went on with filling out Luffy's reports while Hattori ate the plentiful of food crumbs on the floor. Luffy would fill out what he was confident with and occasionally asked Lucci to help him with something. It was better compared to the beginning, where Luffy kept whining and complaining and begging for Lucci to do his paperwork for him, desperate enough to even pull his puppy dog eyes on Kaku. If Lucci wasn't helping Luffy out with something, he would be reading one of the books that he left there. He often visited the room to either help Luffy sleep or help him with reports. Sometimes Luffy would drag him in here just to talk, and Lucci would nod as a reply to Luffy's babbling while he stimulated his brain with a book.

"Yosh!" Luffy exclaimed and slammed his pen down onto the bed. His eyelids were a bit heavy because paperwork always made him sleepy, but now that he was done he was excited and chirpy. Luffy held his written reports up to Lucci for him to proofread. Lucci accepted the reports and Luffy headed to the bathroom to shower.

"Wait," Lucci called, causing Luffy to skid to a stop. Lucci placed the reports down and beckoned Luffy to him. When Luffy was right in front of Lucci, the man lifted the bottom of Luffy's shirt up. "Hold up your shirt." Luffy did as told and kept his shirt just above his nipple line.

Lucci licked his lips and kept his eyes off of Luffy's upper torso. He undid the bandages and inspected the injury. It looked like it was going to heal well.

"I could've done that myself," Luffy said.

"I felt like it," Lucci replied and pat Luffy's hip to tell him that he could go now.

Luffy snickered and said "Okay" before making his way to the bathroom.

The bedroom was consumed with silence after Luffy skipped off to take a shower. Lucci tapped his foot at the silence while looking over Luffy's reports for any mistakes. Luffy still had more paperwork to fill out, but they'd do them after their trip to Pucci.

A few minutes passed and Lucci glanced up towards the doorway when he heard Luffy's wet feet patter on the floor. Luffy was using one hand to carry a pile of his dirty clothes and using another hand to keep the towel around his waist. Luffy, seeming to not notice the gaze, walked to his closet to look for some clean clothes while observant eyes were glued on his body.

Luffy, who held no problem in exposing his body, took the towel from around his hips, since it was the only towel in his vicinity, and patted his body dry. Lucci pulled his eyes away before the towel could reveal anything private, keeping his eyes firmly on the paper as Luffy put on the clothes he found.

"Yosh!" Lucci finally looked up to a fully dressed Luffy wearing black shorts and a red vest, ready to go on his trip. Lucci nodded and placed down the finished reports.

"Luffy come here and unbutton your vest."

Luffy nodded and walked to where Lucci was sitting on the bed while unbuttoning his vest, revealing the lithely muscled torso. Lucci once again kept his gaze focused on the injuries and away from his chest and brought his hands up to trail over the healing papercuts, most already completely healed and the rest don't need anymore ointment. Lucci looked at the stab wound and saw red skin around it, most likely irritated by the shower.

"Do you have a first aid kit," Lucci asked.

Luffy nodded and grabbed his first aid kit from his drawer. Lucci treated Luffy's wounds and once Luffy's stab wound was properly bandaged, Lucci nodded and buttoned Luffy's vest up.

Lucci waited for Luffy to move away, but instead the boy crawled into his lap and settled his arms on Lucci's broad shoulders. Lucci's unique brows elevated as he looked down at Luffy, who was looking at Lucci with a gaze that reminded Lucci of last night. Ah, Luffy was going to thank him again. He still had to get used to that. Lucci closed his eyes and waited.

And he kept his eyes closed when he felt soft foreign lips delicately pressing against his own.

His eyes were still closed when those lips left his after what felt like a fraction of a millisecond and the pressure on his lap slid off. He heard the familiar laughter somewhere outside of the room.

He was finally able to open his eyes when Hattori flew to his shoulder and gave him a questioning coo. An unstable breath tumbled out of Lucci's nose. Did that have anything to do with attraction, or did Luffy just do that to thank him? Does he do that to other people as a thanks, then? It felt so... _innocent_, but the surprising touch still left some sort of tingling in his fingertips and stirring in his lower regions.

A scowl enveloped his face as he stood up and headed towards the bathroom.

* * *

The three males exited their apartment and started walking towards the train station. Luffy was exuberantly bouncing in excitement while Lucci silently walked next to him. Kaku was on Luffy's other side and noted how Lucci was walking close to Luffy, but not touching him. Which was weird because Lucci usually had a hand on Luffy's shoulder or arm and sometimes hand to make sure that the boy couldn't leave their sight.

"Luffy!"

The three turned their heads to the call of Luffy's name and saw Pauli smiling and walking towards them. Luffy gave a bright smile, not noticing the small blush on Pauli's face when he did so.

"Pauli!" Luffy shouted back and started walking toward Pauli. Lucci, who did see the teenie flush of pink on Pauli's cheeks, grabbed Luffy's elbow to stop him from walking any further and immediately let go afterward. Luffy looked up at Lucci in confusion but shrugged it off in favor of talking with his friend.

"Hey! Thank god you're here! These guys are scary when you're gone! Where've you been, hah?" Pauli asked, not noticing Lucci's action.

"Mission!" Luffy cheerfully answered. Kaku internally sighed. It was too late for them to tell Luffy to stop saying that he was on a mission whenever people asked. At least he wasn't making totally unbelievable lies that would cause suspicion among the public.

Pauli chuckled. "Well it's great that you're havin fun! Well, I gotta go since _some_ people decided to take a day off and now Dock 1 is pretty hectic. Just came over here cause I haven't seen Luffy for a long time."

Lucci's brow arched and he stared Pauli down. "How long have you been waiting here?" Lucci said. (A/N: Assume that Lucci is using his pigeon voice whenever they're in public until I say that he isn't, unless you've already been doing that then keep going, ty)

Pauli became flustered and waved both his hands up. "Ah, uh, not long. A couple minutes, maybe. Ahem, uh, I'm just gonna go now since the Dock is pretty busy today with two of our foremen are gone."

Kaku gave a somewhat nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his head while Lucci looked completely unapologetic with Hattori mimicking his expression. "Yeah, sorry about that, Pauli," Kaku said.

Pauli waved it off "It's no problem. The work of Dock 1 really makes a man beg for a vacation." Paulie turned around to walk towards Dock 1 and waved his hand. "Have fun you guys, see you tomorrow."

"Byeee rope guy!" Luffy waved back. Lucci scoffed (_'I never beg' _he thought) and turned around to keep walking towards the train station. Kaku quickly followed, and when Luffy finally noticed them walking away he quickly ran forward, not wanting to be left behind.

* * *

The train ride felt even more awkward than previous ones, which at least didn't have any clouds of tension flying above their heads and choking them. Lucci's attitude seemed cold and distant with his arms crossed and eyes staring out the window, and while Luffy's excitement can never be dampened down by outside forces, he still felt a bit down when Lucci didn't reply to his rambling.

When they got off the train, Luffy's mood quickly brightened an infinite amount of times from being surrounded by so many food places.

"Let's go there!" Luffy shouted while pointing to a restaurant that showed a big sign that said 'All Meat Buffet and Bar'.

Luffy grabbed Lucci's hand to drag the man towards the building, but Lucci roughly yanked his hand out of Luffy's grip and continued walking towards the building himself. Confusion took over Luffy and he tilted his head. Kaku, who also witnessed Lucci's coldness, also wondered what happened.

The three walked inside and got a table. Luffy made a beeline to the food section and returned to the table with multiple trays of meat and other delicacies. Lucci and Kaku got themselves average size yet delicious meals. Lucci sat across from Luffy and Kaku sat next to him. Hattori was eating crumbs on the table, like always.

They ignored the wondrous looks that they were receiving from other tourist customers as a waitress came to their table with their drinks.

"There you go!" the waitress chirped as she placed them down. "They're on the house! Nice to see you again!" She winked at them (it was mostly directed at Lucci) as she walked away to tend to another table.

"Hn?" Luffy grabbed his cup and saw a yellowish fizzy drink. He was about to take a sip when the cup was suddenly snatched out of his hand. He made a small noise of confusion and looked up to see that Lucci held his drink in his hand. "Hey! That's mine!"

"No alcohol for you," Lucci answered.

Luffy pouted and crossed his arms. "That's not fair! Now you have two drinks and I have none!"

"Please calm down, we can always get you another drink, Luffy," Kaku tried to soothe the imminent argument.

"No! He still has two drinks and that's not fair!" Luffy said. "He can't drink two drinks!"

Lucci narrowed his eyes and brought Luffy's cup to his mouth to chug down the drink. Luffy's eyes widened as Lucci slammed the empty cup down and went to chug down the next cup. By the time the next cup was empty, Luffy's eyes were squinting in anger and his mouth was pulled down in a fierce frown.

"There, now I also have no drinks," Lucci wiped his mouth and placed the cup down. He had enough tolerance to only feel the slight buzz in his head and he still seemed sober. He's been feeling like he needed some alcohol in his system, lately.

"Augh!" Luffy roared and slammed his palms on the table, making Kaku slightly jump in surprise but receiving no reaction from Lucci. "What's wrong with you, hn?! Why are you so mean now!" Lucci didn't reply to Luffy's racket and continued to eat his food. When Luffy received no reply he continued, "Is it because of what I did? Did you not like it?"

Lucci's brow arching was his only response and Kaku looked between the two males, wondering what Luffy did that Lucci may have disliked, or liked.

Luffy's brow twitched and his fists clenched as Lucci continued ignoring him. Kaku worriedly glanced between the two, body poised in case he had to stop a fight. A growl erupted from deep in Luffy's throat and he suddenly lunged forward, grabbing Lucci's collar and bringing the man forward as well.

Kaku expected Luffy to punch Lucci in the face or maybe slap him really hard to smack the bad mood out of the man. What Kaku completely, absolutely, _positively _did _not_ expect, however, was when Luffy smashed his mouth over Lucci's.

"Holy shit," Kaku whispered in a strained voice of astonishment, and somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a little voice saying _'I knew it'_ as his eyes were glued to Luffy's and Lucci's adjoined lips. He sat there, heart having a seizure and body completely frozen, while Luffy pushed his mouth against Lucci's, and it didn't look like Lucci was going to push him away anytime soon.

"Holy SHIT," Kaku exclaimed and finally realized what was happening and that they were in public.

Kaku grabbed the back of both of their collars and roughly pulled the two apart, causing the two mouths to rip apart with a pop.

Lucci stared at the panting Luffy, marveling at the soft blush on his cheeks and eyes still lit with sparks of fury.

Apparently, Lucci must've been drunk enough to grasp the back of Luffy's head and pull his face forward so that their lips could meet once again.

Kaku almost squealed in embarrassment at the scene happening right in front of his face and he yanked them apart again. His face a steaming bright red and sweat was gushing down his face when he heard the murmurs of the other customers.

"We're going home now!" Kaku exclaimed and pulled the two males out of the restaurant so fast that it was borderline _soru_ with Hattori flying and cooing after them. Luckily Kaku remembered to drop some money off on the table to pay for the food.

Kaku made Lucci sit in another booth in the trolley while he held Luffy down by the shoulders, trying to calm the boy down and hoping that Lucci grabbed ahold of his sanity.

"Ma, Kaku, why'd we have to leave?" Luffy whined. "We didn't even go to any other food places."

Kaku groaned and pat Luffy's head while looking at him with stern eyes. "Because you're not supposed to do _that_ kind of thing in public. _Please_ don't ever do that in public again."

Luffy pouted and crossed his arms, "But I want to."

Kaku shook his head. He vaguely recalled a memory long ago when he remembered someone being scolded for the same reason Luffy was. "You can only do that if you love the person you're doing it to, not just because you want to."

"Then I love Lucci." Luffy exclaimed. Kaku spluttered at the statement and he heard someone cough in the trolley.

Kaku shushed Luffy and glanced around the trolley, only to see no heads other than the black top hat near the other end of the trolley. "Luffy," Kaku whispered and brought his face close to Luffy in an attempt to not have Lucci hear, "you can't... _love_ Lucci."

Luffy cocked his head. "Why not?" he said, and since he wasn't whispering Kaku got flustered and started frantically shushing.

"Just... _because. _Gah, I don't know," Kaku scratched the back of his head, trying to put his thoughts into words. This entire situation was jumbling his thoughts and wreaking havoc to his brain. "Lucci– ah, because he can't."

"Can't what?"

"Love," Kaku whispered into Luffy's ear.

"Why?"

"Because he won't," Kaku answered gravelly, not explaining anymore, "and I suggest that you stop, too. Our kind of world has no time for that kind of thing."

Luffy frowned and slouched, staring down at the table with blank eyes and furrowed brows. Kaku leaned back and sighed, hoping that that was able to calm down Luffy at least for now.

The rest of the train ride was spent in silence except for Luffy's tapping feet and Hattori's soft cooing.

* * *

Luffy sat crosslegged in the middle of the courtyard located somewhere within the uninhabited outskirts of Water 7. Lucci, top hatless and hair tied up, stood across from him while holding something long and wrapped in cloth.

It was a few days after the trip to Pucci, and Kaku finally allowed Lucci to train Luffy once again. Lucci also stayed at Blueno's place for a while, and Luffy often visited him. Lucci came back after two days, and Luffy immediately dragged him to the couch for a nap once he saw Lucci's dark eyebags.

"What's that?" Luffy asked when Lucci placed the wrapped object down next to himself.

"You'll know when you get it," Lucci answered. The man crossed his arms and stared at Luffy with stern eyes.

Luffy cocked his head. "When do I get it?"

"Now."

Luffy was still confused. Was he supposed to walk over there and get it? It made sense, since it seemed sort of selfish for Luffy to just assume that Lucci would walk all the way over to him to hand the object to him. But it was selfish for Lucci to wait for Luffy to come to him, too.

Luffy decided to stand up to get the object, his eyes never leaving Lucci's. This was ringing all kinds of warning bells in his brain. He slowly walked around the man, body tense and ready to avoid an attack as he neared the object.

When he was at a safe distance, Luffy stretched his arm towards the object, not risking his entire body going near Lucci.

Lucci immediately grabbed the rubbery arm and swung Luffy's body around until the boy flew off and landed face first against one of the buildings surrounding the courtyard. Luffy fell down with a groan, rubble falling along with him.

Luffy stood up and shook his head. Dammit, he knew Lucci was going to pull one of those. Luffy turned around and determinedly ran back towards Lucci. Luffy shot one rubbery arm at Lucci, who easily blocked it, and another rubbery arm to where he predicted Lucci would dodge to. Lucci grabbed the fist that was just about to collide with his face and pulled, fist up and ready while Luffy's body flew towards Lucci. Luffy brought one arm up to block the fist that Lucci was pulling his face towards and kicked the hand that was holding onto his other wrist. Lucci let go of Luffy and went to _shigan_ Luffy's chest, but Luffy quickly dodged to the side and kicked the floor to propel his body backwards.

Lucci narrowed his eyes when he saw Luffy's foot hooked around the object.

Luffy giggled as he leaned down to pick up the object. He didn't take his eyes off of Lucci, just in case he decided to attack while he wasn't paying attention, as he unwrapped the cloth on the object.

Luffy looked down at the... stick. It was a long metallic pole, but literally a stick. Luffy curiously inspected the pole and found a button near the bottom. He pressed it and jumped back when a blade slid out from the other end. Luffy's brows furrowed and his lips were pulled taut in curiosity and wonder at what this could be used for. It looked pretty cool, and the random knife thing was a nice touch.

"You can use this in missions," Lucci said, suddenly right next to Luffy. Luffy didn't react to Lucci's sudden presence as he focused on the object.

"Why would I use this?" Luffy asked.

"Killing," Lucci answered while sliding his hand near the end that had a knife. Lucci ignored Luffy's suddenly tense body and continued talking. "This blade is made out of seastone, as well as the bottom of the other end."

Luffy experimented by tapping the tip, causing him to suddenly sag when his strength got sapped. Lucci let Luffy lean on him from the seastone induced weakness and pointed at the button. "This button, as you saw, ejects the blade. Also, since you mentioned that you favored using a pipe in combat, you can use this in a similar way as a pipe."

Luffy nodded, even though he forgot when he told Lucci about using a pipe to fight when he was younger. He must've said it while rambling on to Lucci. He barely ever remembers what he says when he does that.

"Of course you'll still have a gun since you'll most likely be killing people from afar as well, but you can use this weapon in close combat until you have complete mastery over all rokushikis."

Luffy ran his hand along the long pole. "Why do I need a weapon? Can't I just use my fists?"

"Unless you can fist someone to death, you need this weapon." Lucci pressed the button for three seconds and suddenly the bottom half of the pole burst off. Luffy flinched and his hands tightened on both halves. He looked at the bottom half and saw a long blade coming from the end that used to be connected to the top half. "Just in case," Lucci muttered as Luffy flipped the revealed blade.

"Why do I need this now?" Luffy asked.

"This is around the time that the Chief loses his patience and will finally give you a mission to kill," Lucci said idly while slipping behind Luffy and guiding Luffy's hands to slide the two pieces back in place. He pressed the button again and the blade at the tip retracted.

Luffy gulped and started doing random moves with his new weapon.

"Now attack me." Lucci commanded. He turned away from Luffy and started walking.

Luffy waited until Lucci turned around before springing forward.

Lucci used his leg to block the pole and flipped in mid air to use his other leg to kick Luffy across the face, sending the boy airborne. Luffy righted himself in the air and skid a stop, bringing his new weapon up just in time to block a deadly kick to the face.

Luffy's eyes widened when he saw Lucci's clawed hand rise up while he was still blocking the foot. He ducked when Lucci swiped his hand down, the force of it slicing through the floor behind Luffy and creating five deep grooves into the already violated courtyard.

Luffy flipped the stick to try to push the blocked kick up, but Lucci just let his foot get shot up and then slammed his leg down towards where Luffy was crouching. Luffy used the tip to block the leg, using the seastone to create a falter in Lucci's movements while holding the button and grabbing the ejected end with the smaller blade. Luffy surged up while still holding the seastone tip against Lucci's leg, the small blade close to slicing Lucci's face until Lucci bent backwards. Lucci landed with his hands and surged his lower body upward, kicking Luffy as he did so.

Luffy grunted and flipped to right himself again, face holding a determined look that Lucci looked forward to seeing. Luffy suddenly threw the smaller blade towards Lucci's chest, but Lucci just caught it and shook his head.

"Don't give your opponent your weapon, Luffy," Lucci scolded and threw the knife back using thrice as much force that Luffy used. The blade whizzed past just close to slicing through Luffy's neck and deeply imbedded itself in the wall behind him. Luffy scowled and stretched his arm backward to retrieve the blade, blazing eyes never leaving Lucci's. He put his pole back together and retracted the small blade, leaving his weapon to look like a normal stick again.

Luffy attacked again, trying to bring the seastone tip in contact with Lucci again. Lucci figured out what he was trying to do and skillfully avoided each jab and thrust. Luffy suddenly dived forward and used a _shigan_ aimed for Lucci's abdomen. Lucci caught the hand and tutted. "You still have a while until you have mastery over this."

Luffy growled flipped, quickly swiping both legs towards Lucci's face, but Lucci easily dodged both kicks. Luffy pressed the button and thrust the small blade into the floor, using the now imbedded stick to swing his body towards Lucci and swinging his foot forward, leg surging with power of a _rankyaku_. Lucci dodged the highlighted force that emanated from the kick and sliced through the air.

Lucci smirked. "Still have a while until you have mastery over that, too."

Luffy groaned at his failed attack and readied himself for another.

They fought as the orange sky turned dark blue. Luffy was laying on the floor, his panting chest fluttering, sweat drenching his entire body and hand loosely gripping his newly acquired weapon.

He had enough energy to at least catch the water bottle that was thrown above him. Luffy groaned and tried to sit up, only to give up when his muscles gave out and plop back down. Luffy opened the water bottle and was about to chug down the water while laying down until his body was suddenly lifted up and leaned against a chest.

Luffy groaned in appreciation of the makeshift backrest and eagerly drank the water. After the bottle was empty he dropped his hand down along with the bottle and leaned his head against the shoulder behind him, mouth wide open in an attempt to breath in as much air as possible.

Luffy shifted when he noticed the feeling of vibrations against his back. "Ma, Lucci." Lucci grunted in response. "Your devil fruit's a cat zoan, right?"

Lucci's brow arched. "Yes, why?"

Luffy giggled. "You purr a lot."

Lucci huffed when he heard that because yes, he purrs. Most frequently with Luffy. Lucci calmed his panting down so that his purrs could be less noticeable.

"Thanks for giving me the stick," Luffy muttered while trying to twist his body around so that he could face Lucci. Lucci helped Luffy out since the boy could barely move his muscles.

"Stick?" Lucci said once Luffy was comfortably facing him and Lucci's fingers were linked behind Luffy's back so that the boy wouldn't fall backwards. "That was expensive, you know."

Luffy smiled and laughed. "It's still a stick, but it's a special stick."

Luffy sighed and leaned his forehead against Lucci's. "Can I kiss you?"

Lucci's brows furrowed, eyes cast down and face slightly turned to the side. He didn't look at the disappointment washing over Luffy's face. He closed his eyes when he felt lips give his cheek a soft peck.

"Thanks for the stick," Luffy muttered and leaned his head on Lucci's shoulder. Lucci combed his hand through Luffy's hair, waiting for his breathing to turn calm with sleep. When Luffy's breathing evened out and his body felt slightly heavier with sleep, Lucci gently lifted the boy and carried him back to their home, walking in the shadows and making sure that no one saw them.

* * *

A/N: Lucci was just showering when he went to the bathroom I swear. Look at this loser trying to write romance ;-; Also I thought since Kalifa has her whips and Kaku had his sword/chisel things, why not give Luffy a weapon. And sorry if the fighting scene was confusing. and sorry it so long and boring. the offer to adopt is still up, but I probably messed up the story too much.

Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed and thanks to those who faved/followed/reviewed :)


	7. Chapter 7: extra

Extra (because I couldn't really add it to this chapter since it takes place around the time after the time in chapter 3)

* * *

The wind was picking up and Luffy had to tightly hold onto his straw hat so that it wouldn't go flying off. Lucci had the same problem with his top hat and had to have Hattori help in holding it down onto his head. The little pigeon did a great job in pinning it down by clamping his little beak onto the rim, but that meant that the little bird couldn't act out the ventriloquism and so Lucci wouldn't be able to communicate easily.

Luffy looked up in fascination at the accumulating clouds. The entire sky looked grey and there were spots that would suddenly flash with lightning, making the boy giggle and point out the flashes to Lucci. Lucci only nodded and tightly held onto the boy's hand while holding wood boards with his other arm.

The boy jumped when a loud horn suddenly blared through all the speakers in Water 7 and his eyes widened when he heard the announcement of aqua laguna coming again. People around the were already boarding up before the announcement started, used to the timing of the terrifying storm. Luffy looked up at the boards that Lucci was carrying.

"Mah, is that why we bought more boards?" Luffy asked, looking over Lucci to observe the boards he was carrying. He looked up to look at Lucci nodding.

Lucci gave Luffy a side glance. The boy seemed to be completely fine with only a sleeveless shirt and shorts, despite the raging winds and cold atmosphere that chilled most people's bones. "Aren't you cold?"

Luffy blinked and blankly stared up at Lucci, then suddenly shuddering and curling in on himself. Lucci scoffed at the shivering little form and took off his coat. He remembered Kaku giving Luffy a coat earlier today, but the boy must've lost it. He does that quite often, and he even lost his pants once when he fell into a canal. They weren't able to retrieve the pants, letting it rapidly flow along with the quick current of the canals. Sometimes, when they're walking, they see the pants floating past them and Luffy giggles and tries to chase after it, not that he ever succeeds in retrieving it.

Lucci took his large coat and put it over Luffy's head, burying the little body by its size. Luffy popped his head out and curiously looked at the coat around him. It was warm and it immediately brought heat back into his bones. He sighed in content and smiled up at Lucci. "Thanks Chichi!"

A scowl enveloped Lucci's face at the nickname. Luffy's miraculous young rubber brain somehow decided that since 'Luffy' and 'Lucci' seemed too similar to each other except for the endings, Luffy would be called 'Fifi' and Lucci 'Chichi'. Lucci absolutely hated it, but Luffy persisted in using it. Luckily, no one dares to use it except for Luffy himself, and on occasion Lucci would sometimes call Luffy 'Fi' in calm and lazy times. Like when Lucci's reading late at night and Luffy decides to spend time with him and lay on his lap while Lucci read. Lucci felt a slight twinge of disgust as the boy snored and drooled on his torso, but overall he was able to read peacefully throughout the night and even got an hour of shuteye.

"Don't call me that," Lucci said as they neared their apartment. Luffy just ignored him and hummed while hugging the coat closer to himself.

Luffy trembled in his little haven of warm blankets and stolen pillows (via the couch and Kaku's bedroom). Water slapped against the boarding of his bedroom window and each loud noise made Luffy flinch and whimper. He was in the corner of his bedroom, farthest away from his window and closest to his door.

It was his second time experiencing the aqua laguna and he still feared having the boards broken apart and being drowned in the flooding water. Luffy tried to go to sleep when Kaku told him to, but the sounds of the boards precariously being pounded by rough waters kept him awake.

He looked up when his door opened. A head peeked through the entrance and he saw familiar dark hair tied up in a fluffy pony tail.

Lucci looked at the bed and when he saw no sleeping Luffy he calmly turned his head toward where he sensed the boy. Luffy, distracted by Lucci and no longer shivering, chirped at him and smiled. Lucci arched a brow at the bundle of blankets, pillows, and boy.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" Lucci asked as he fully walked into the room to crouch near Luffy.

"Mnn, don't know," Luffy mumbled and burrowed deeper into the blankets with his head popping out. The next loud bang coming from the boarded up window surprised Luffy and made him flinch and scoot closer to the source of safety he's had for an entire year.

"Sure you don't," Lucci said. Luffy pouted and crawled towards Lucci, looking like a shuffling mound of soft blankets as he reached Lucci. He pushed himself against Lucci's body between his crouching legs and settled there, feeling the warmth of the big man's body give him a sense of safety and rubbing his head against the warm chest.

Lucci looked down at the bundle and scowled when he heard soft snores. He brought his crouched legs out from under him and stretched them out so that he could settle his butt down instead of having his legs get numbed from the crouching position. His brows furrowed and he dug his hand under his bottom, pulling the item poking him out and looking down at the naked meat bone. He scowled and tossed it away. He wished he brought a book with him.

Luffy yawned as he picked up another piece of rubble. Aqua laguna left Water 7 in shambles once again and Luffy was helping to clean, once again. The adults around him smiled at the young boy helping them unlike the group of children who were jumping around in puddles and laughing. While Luffy did want to play too, he had promised Kaku that he was going to help them clean up.

"Ah! Fi!"

Luffy turned around and saw a little girl running towards him, wearing the coat he let her borrow yesterday. Lucci, who was picking up some boards near Luffy, narrowed his eyes at the young female wearing Luffy's coat. Kaku looked up from cleaning as well and smiled at the young girl.

"Ooh, Luffy? Who is this pretty little lady?" Kaku smiled and walked toward the pair.

The girl blushed and took off the bright red coat. "Thanks for letting me borrow your coat!"

Luffy accepted the coat and smiled. "No problem!"

Kaku gave an amused little chuckle and looked between the two. The girl was still blushing and she shyly clasped her hands behind her back. Luffy went back to picking up rubble and the girl curiously looked at what he was doing.

"Luffy? Why don't you play with us?" The girl asked and tugged on Luffy's shirt.

Luffy straightened up and smiled. "I promised I'd help clean, so I'm gonna clean!"

"Ahh," the girl hummed in understanding and rocked back on her heels, her eyes never leaving the cleaning little boy.

Kaku chuckled at the girl's antics. "Mah, Luffy. It's okay, you can play."

Luffy straightened up and cocked his head at Kaku. "But I promised to clean!"

"I know!" The girl shot up. "We can get everyone to clean up with you! Then you wouldn't need to break your promise!"

Luffy cocked his head as he watched the girl run off to the group of kids. He shrugged and continued to clean, smiling brightly at the kids who randomly ran to him and started to clean with him.

Kaku along with several other adults smiled at the group of children cleaning along with Luffy. The adults endearingly cooed at the sight of the citizens' tiny children helping pick up the smaller pieces of rubble while gaping in awe at how Luffy was able to lift up the larger pieces.

The same girl who borrowed Luffy's coat was running around and happily picking up tiny rock after tiny rock until she suddenly bumped into something, causing her to fall to her butt. She looked up slowly while rubbing her head. She flinched when she felt sudden chills as she stared up at the man, who looked down at her from the side of his eyes while the pigeon menacingly looked over his shoulder.

"Mah, Chichi!"

Lucci's gaze left the girl and he looked up at Luffy to scowl. Luffy laughed and smiled while walking toward the man and little girl. Lucci crouched, causing the little girl to flinch slightly until she felt warm and gently hands firmly lift her up from her armpits and place her back down upright. The little girl blinked and stared with wide, glistening eyes at the large previously looking scary man.

Luffy finally got to the two, his arms full of large pieces of rubble that he was gonna dump in the boat that was floating on the canal near Lucci. He curiously looked between the two and started talking to the silent girl. "'Yellow? Are you ok?" He waved a hand in front of her dazed face.

The tiny girl got shaken out of her faze and a blush bloomed on her face. "Ahm, thank you mister!"

With that she ran away, her hands trying to hide her blushing face. Luffy cocked a brow at her and turned to Lucci. "What's up with her?" He asked.

Lucci shook his head and held his arms out to the rubble that Luffy was holding. Luffy gratefully smiled and dumped his debris into Lucci's arms before running back to clean some more. Kaku chuckled at everything.

Lucci found Luffy crouching in an alley.

"Luffy?"

Luffy didn't turn his head away from whatever he was looking at as Lucci approached him.

"She's dying, Lucci," his voice was quiet and solemn.

Lucci looked over Luffy's shoulder once he came behind the boy and cocked his head at what he saw. A dog, her coat matted with water and blood, was barely even breathing, the only reason she seemed alive was the slight shift of her ribcage and the pathetic whimpers wheezing out its limp maw. There was a large piece of wood jammed into its back, the tip peeking through the other side of the ribcage. There was no doubt that the dog was going to die.

He looked to the side when he heard a sniffle. Lucci saw dribble after dribble of water pouring out the child's eyes. Lucci sighed and hesitently wrapped an arm around the trembling shoulders.

"Do you want me to kill it?"

Luffy suddenly shot Lucci a surprised and somewhat angry look. "No!"

Lucci looked back at the dog, causing Luffy to follow his gaze and rest it on the dying dog again. "The dog will keep suffering if you don't."

Luffy's hazy eyes were focused on the shining drips of water coming from the shaggy haired dog's eyes and his heart tightened at every pained wheeze. "Killing is wrong, though," Luffy muttered, remembering Sabo's death by being killed by the Celestial Dragons.

Lucci gave a dry chuckle. "Killing for a justified reason is right. The dog will live the rest of its short life in excruciating pain, unless we can end its life right now. Relieving his pain is a mercy, not a wrong."

Luffy was silent as he stared at the crying dog. But, what if she could still be saved? No, there are no doctors in Water 7 that can fix this type of injury, and none would want to waste their materials on a hopeless case, especially for a dog. He gave a small nod after moments of silent contemplating.

Luffy's eyes were suddenly covered by a large hand. "Wait!" Lucci paused from mid shigan and waited for Luffy to continue. "Can I say goodbye?"

Lucci didn't remove his hand. "The longer you stall, the longer he'll suffer."

"Byedoggy," Luffy quickly said. "Ihopeyouhavefunwhereveryougo"

After the second of his fast message he gave a nod.

Luffy leaned his head on Lucci's shoulder while the man carried the boy on his back and made his way to their home, the streets empty while Hattori flew overhead.

"Mah, Lucci." Lucci tilted his head towards Luffy to show he was listening. "Is setting off on a boat and trying to find freedom a justified reason to get killed?"

Lucci was silent for a moment. "There is always a reason as to why someone kills. What do you think the reason was?"

Luffy shook his head and he buried his face into Lucci's back. "There was no reason. He didn't bother anyone. He just wanted freedom. I should've helped him. I can't stop anyone from dying, not even that doggy."

The feeling of wetness and the trembling of the boy on his back made Lucci stiffen. "Stop crying. It's pathetic."

Luffy suddenly gave a little giggle in the midst of his sobs, making Lucci wonder if the boy maybe had a bipolar disorder that they weren't aware of.

"Ace said that a lot," Luffy mumbled and brought his chin back onto Lucci's shoulder.

Lucci arched his brow but didn't move, the boy's breathing was finally evened out with sleep and he didn't dare wake him up, not wanting to hear anymore of Luffy's angst.

"Morning, Luffy!" Kaku chirped as he set the plates of breakfast on the table. Luffy sleepily rubbed his eye and shuffled to the table. He sat down across Lucci and gave the man a small mumble of a goodmorning. "How was your day yesterday? We didn't get to talk much because you went straight to sleep when you went home."

Luffy yawned then placed a piece of meat into his wide open mouth, eyes still swollen with sleepiness as he chewed. "Mm, witnessed a dog die."

Kaku's eyes widened and he almost dropped the pan he was holding. "Ah, sorry."

"No it's fine. Killing is okay, 'cause I didn't want it to keep hurting," Luffy said as he popped food after food into his mouth.

Kaku glanced at the silent Lucci, assuming that the man had something to do with Luffy's statement. Kaku only smiled and nodded. "That's nice. Ah, Luffy, careful those sandwiches have toothpicks in them–"

* * *

A/N: i just wanted to get this out I hope that's ok c:


	8. Chapter 8: another extra

A/N: another extra that takes place a bit before chapter 4 (which is the one where Luffy met Spandam) please complain about how I cannot put a story in chronological order in the reviews

* * *

"I'm boooooored" Luffy whined as his vision spiralled around, much like his body was doing on the carpet.

Similar phrases about boredom flew out of Luffy's mouth one after another and was able to drown out the eerie sounds of the storm and water slapping against the boarded windows. The living room floor had the fortune of being rolled on by a bored Luffy while Lucci silently read a book on the couch. The man ignored Luffy's constant attention-seeking whining athe annoying being rolled away from the couch and then back.

Luffy grunted when he collided into Lucci's legs. Luffy glanced up from his position, laying on his back on the floor with Lucci's calves pressed against his side, but Lucci still hasn't given Luffy the attention he's striving for.

Luffy groaned and continued his nonsensical rolling. Hattori decided to entertain himself by jumping over the rolling boy, and at least having a pigeon jump over him was able to give him a bit of amusement.

The last Aqua Laguna was quite the blessing since Luffy mostly slept through it, but it must've been a one time miracle because this time Luffy seemed to have an endless amount of energy that just can't be burned when trapped within such a tiny space that is the living room. Luffy has apparently gotten over his fear of Aqua Laguna, but only if he had Lucci nearby.

Hours before, Kaku tried to get Luffy to go to sleep, like in the last aqua laguna, but the boy would stubbornly cling to Lucci and wouldn't sleep no matter how much Kaku asked. Lucci decided to distract his mind away from the annoying blabber and his straining string of patience with a wonderful mind-numbing book (to numb out his growing annoyance). After Kaku realized the uselessness of telling the boy to sleep, he bid the other two males a goodnight and went(escaped) to his bedroom to sleep, leaving Lucci to deal with Luffy alone.

"Chichi!"

Lucci's poor little patience string was yanked at the loud callout of his terrible nickname and he harshly dropped the book down open on his lap. He looked down at the floor to see that Luffy had stopped rolling and had spread his limbs throughout the carpet while staring up at the ceiling.

"Tickle me!" Luffy commanded, willingly leaving his body completely vulnerable to any tickle attacks.

"No," was Lucci's immediate answer and he brought the book back up to his face.

Luffy whined and did a small summersault to sit in front of Lucci's legs, swaying a bit from dizziness. "Don't be boringgg."

Luffy pouted when Lucci didn't react and he started fiddling with the bottom hem of Lucci's pants. Lucci didn't care about what Luffy did, as long as the boy didn't disturb him.

A few moments of silence passed and Lucci only hoped that the boy found something that he could silently entertain himself with. Of course with Luffy there can never be something both silent and fun, so Lucci should've expected it when Luffy suddenly jumped out of nowhere and attacked him.

"Aiiiee!" Luffy shouted as he pounced, knocking Lucci's book away and replacing it with his hyperactive body. "Shihishishi!" Luffy giggled, thinking that he was so sly and sneaky because he snuck up on Lucci for a tickle attack of his own. He wrapped his legs around Lucci's waist several times so the man couldn't escape his merciless tickling and got to work on finding Lucci's fun spots. Luffy dug his hand under the man's armpits and wiggled his fingers, a large mischievous smile on his face as he attempted to make Lucci crack a smile.

Lucci only blankly stared down at the boy, whose fingers were still trying to wander his body in a pathetic attempt to find his ticklish spots. Luffy's smile was now a firm line as he tickled from Lucci's neck then reached down to tickle the man's feet. Not one spot was able to get Lucci's lips to make even a slight twitch of a smile.

The excited expression turned into a pout and Luffy crossed his arms, retracting his legs from Lucci's waist. He sat back on Lucci's thighs and gave Lucci a pouty face. Lucci sneered in response to the pout and reached for the book that was thrown onto the couch.

Luffy stuck his tongue out at Lucci when the man brought the book back up to his face. "Your body is so _boring_."

Luffy went back to sulking because Lucci wouldn't give him any attention, he just wanted to focus on some boring _book_. Like this _book_ can ever be better than him, and yet Lucci still favored it more than him. Damn that book. Luffy made offensive faces at the book that acted as a wall between his and Lucci's faces.

Lucci's brows twitched when he felt his hair being fiddled with. Hattori, his ever most_ loyal_ companion, curiously watched the boy playing with the long strands of dark hair and his pigeon mind decided it was a good idea to play along with him. So now the man had two creatures pulling at his hair and yanking at his scalp. He's fortunate to have the patience and pain tolerance to ignore those two extremely aggravating hair-pullers that would _not fucking stop_.

"You should get a haircut," Luffy said out of nowhere.

Lucci's brows pulled down at the comment. What was wrong with his hair? "Why?"

"If you get in a fight, people are gonna pull at your hair. That's why Ace didn't let me grow out my hair."

While the explanation was surprisingly logical for the mostly illogical boy, Lucci didn't want to change his hair for now. "No."

Luffy shrugged. If the man wanted his hair to get pulled by his enemies then it's his own choice that'll backfire against him in the future. Luffy's hands lost interest in torturing Lucci's hair and reached over the book to poke at Lucci's face. Specifically his unique beard and eyebrows.

"Your beard looks like a horseshoe," Luffy muttered while pinching the small hairs of Lucci's trimmed beard.

The book was calmly closed and placed down on the couch before Luffy's hands were suddenly captured in a tight grip. Luffy's widened eyes stared at Lucci's darkening expression. His head flinched back when Lucci abruptly brought his face closer.

"Sleep." Lucci hissed, the glaring annoyance in his voice sending chills down Luffy's spine.

But not enough to make him heed Lucci's underlying threat in his command.

Luffy spat his tongue toward Lucci and tried to yank his hands out of Lucci's grip, but no matter how much he tried to pull away Lucci's hands didn't let go. Luffy hopped off of Lucci's lap and let his arms stretch as he ran around the living room, struggling to tug his arms out. The boy kept on pulling and pulling and his arms kept getting longer and longer but Lucci still didn't let go.

Luffy sent Lucci a glare from his position on the other side of the living room. He sat there, cross-legged, with his stretched arms still tightly held in Lucci's grasp. Lucci sent Luffy back a blank stare as he placed both wrists in one hand.

It would've been fine, since Luffy was content with just having Lucci's attention, but then Lucci picked up his book again all the while holding Luffy's trapped wrists.

When Luffy no longer had any attention on him, he pouted and tried to wiggle his arms out of Lucci's grip, flexing his hands towards Lucci in an attempt to grab at anything.

Luffy gave a dramatically loud whine and flopped down onto the floor, his arms still held by Lucci. Hattori flew over to him and tried to comfort the agonizingly bored boy, but the pigeon could only peck at the boy's hair and hop on his body in an attempt to entertain the boy. Luffy was not entertained, and he gave a loud exaggerated sigh to express so.

"Booooored," Luffy repeated and laid there, wallowing in a pathetic heap of boredom.

Lucci stayed silent as Luffy sulked and unenthusiastically wiggled his arms. The reading man ignored the glare being sent to him the entire time.

"Chichiiii, I'm boooored," Luffy repeated again as he rolled around, only to get wrapped up in his own arms.

Lucci somehow flipped the page of his book using one hand before icily replying, "If you call me that name one more time I will throw you outside."

Luffy, who had surprisingly managed to untangle himself from his arms, sat up with an amused grin. "Aww, Chichi you wouldn't do that."

Lucci remained silent and decided not to answer because yes, he wouldn't do that, but nobody needed to know. After a few minutes of Lucci giving no reply and ignoring him in favor of his book Luffy went back to sulking and hopelessly tugging his arms.

Lucci didn't take his eyes off the book, even when he felt the boy crawl onto the couch and lay his head on his lap. Lucci finally let go of Luffy's arms in favor of running his fingers through dark locks.

"Lucci, I wanna build a boat," Luffy mumbled against Lucci's thigh.

Lucci only hummed while focusing his attention on the book in his hand and running his hand through Luffy's locks until the boy finally fell asleep. He should've remembered that when Luffy said he was gonna do something, he was gonna fucking do it.

* * *

"What did you do."

Lucci gave no reaction to Kaku's accusation. The two men were eating breakfast, like they always did in the morning, but an important person was absent. A very important person who has been absent for an entire week. A very, very tense and awkward week; for Kaku, that is. For Lucci he was just sleepier and bad tempered.

"When?" Lucci asked before taking a bite out of his fish.

"A week ago!" Kaku said. "Luffy hasn't been home in a week! And he hasn't visited the dock, either!"

"So?"

"So?! What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did anything?"

"He disappeared right after aqua laguna, and he seemed fine before I went to sleep," Kaku said, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "He didn't even help clean up the city, like he usually does."

Lucci continued to mechanically eat his breakfast and ignored Kaku's accusations. "He's fine. He's been staying with Iceberg."

Kaku's brow arched. How did Lucci know that? Wait, of course Lucci would find out about Luffy's doings. "Why's he staying at Iceberg's? And how come I haven't seen him?"

Lucci gave a slight sigh and leaned back on his chair, the haze in his head and the churning in his stomach made him irritated. The swollenness under his eyes just added to the feeling. Hattori worriedly rubbed against his cheek when he brought a hand up to rub the bridge of his nose.

Kaku was surprised that Lucci let himself get this uncomposed in front of him. He silently observed the man and saw the tiredness in Lucci's body that has accumulated during this past week, from the circles under his eyes to the slightly slower movements. Lucci's skin complexion was paler than usual and his eyes slightly bloodshot, and he's obviously been more irritated and cranky.

The only times that Kaku has seen Lucci dozing off was during their lunch break, and he knows that those times are the only times that Lucci has allowed himself to rest. But he hasn't gotten any proper sleep and so he wasn't able to completely regenerate himself after countless hours of activity.

"He said something about building a boat," Lucci muttered, his sensitive ears picking up sounds he did not care for made him feel even more agitated. He dropped his hand down and stood up. He grabbed Kaku's dishes, ignoring the exclamations of not being finished, and loudly dumped the dishes into the sink, the loud noise almost caused Kaku to flinch.

Lucci did the dishes with harsh and rushed movements. Kaku's brows furrowed in worry for the poor dishes were subjected to Lucci's brutality. He glanced at the clock and saw that there was only a quarter of an hour before they needed to go to work.

Lucci finished the dishes in record time and immediately walked to the door afterwards, steps heavier than usual. Kaku shot up from his seat at the table and quickly followed after the sleep deprived man.

Luffy stuffed his face bite after bite, but he didn't allow his overflowing mouth to hind his one-sided conversation with Blueno. "Isheberg oji can run really fasht in hish shuit, he almosht caught me in tag."

Luffy sat at one of the stools in Blueno's bar, tons of plates both full of food and empty surrounded him on the counter. There were only a couple of other tables being occupied by early bird citizens, but the bar's usual early hour peace was disturbed by Luffy's noisy personality.

Blueno nodded in response to Luffy's rambling, like he (and almost everyone) always does, while he cleaned the plates that Luffy used. He's used to cooking for Luffy because the boy thought of his supposed _bar_ as his favorite restaurant. He usually doesn't cook, all he had to do was give out drinks, but then this strawhat wearing boy came into his bar and started up a conversation with the silent man.

Then, a few days after meeting the boy, the undercover agent discovered that Luffy was under the 'care' of Lucci and Kaku. The fact was surprising enough, but hearing about Lucci's growing attachment to the boy from the many gossipers in the bar kicked his curiosity to another level.

He hasn't seen much interaction between Luffy and his guardians. The two men had to refrain from visiting him too often or else people would assume that they have a connection, which was not favorable for their covers. Luffy, however, had free reign to do whatever he wants. And he wants to visit the man who gives him food.

"Mugiwara bro!"

Luffy spun around in his stool and turned his wide eyes to the man who called his name. He gave a welcome laugh and waved his hand. "Franky aniki! How'sh it going?"

Franky, arrogantly ignoring the sneers and glances being sent his way from the other customers, sauntered towards the eating boy. "Swallow before you holler bro! Ew, gross." The cyborg brushed off the food crumbs on the stool next to Luffy and settled his spandex clad bottom onto it once it was clean enough. He ordered two coke bottles and slid one coke bottle to Luffy.

Luffy only chuckled and chugged down the bottle of coke. He slammed it down with a satisfied face and gave a content sigh. He smacked his lips and smiled at the cyborg. "Thanks Franky! Did you think about the boat thing?"

A sheepish expression replaced the smug grin on the cyborg's face. "Ah, sorry bro. I promised myself that I wouldn't build another ship until the right time."

Luffy's excitement dulled down and he started to frown. "Isn't this the right time?"

Franky chuckled and shook his head, looking away from Luffy. Who knew when the right time would come; maybe it would never come and he'd live a life without fulfilling his dream.

His rebellious eyes gave in to the urge to glance at Luffy and he immediately felt like crap when he saw such negative emotion on Luffy's usually bright face. It really pulled at this robotic heart strings. During his self robotization, did he somehow leave his heart out? Only a man with no heart can damper this boy's excitement and happiness. "Okay wait," Franky said before digging his hand into the coke compartment in his torso. Luffy watched in fascination as Franky dug his own hand into a cabinet built into his torso. After scavenging around for a few minutes he finally took out a packet of paper and slammed it down on the desk. "Yow! Here's my supah old blueprints of some baby ships I made long ago."

"Waa, sugoi!" Luffy had stars in his eyes as he looked at the cool looking pictures of many different designs of boats. Franky smugly soaked in the appreciation of his work. Luffy was giggling excitedly and he looked up at Franky with sparkling eyes. "Thanks aniki!"

Luffy jumped on the cyborg and gave him an affectionate rubber hug. Franky happily chuckled, the boy's happiness was infectious. Then he used a large hand to peel the rubber boy off of him and placed him back on his stool.

"Ahem, it's no problem. It's good to help the young ones once in a while. And real men don't hug like that," Franky mumbled that last part and brought upon the manliest face he can make to Luffy.

Luffy cocked his head in innocent confusion. "But I hug Lucci like that all the time."

Franky's brow arched as he stared down the boy. That was a pretty intimate and touchy hug right there, and this was a regular occurrence? Franky wondered, what other kinds of intimacy does Luffy have with Lucci?

At first, Franky didn't believe that Lucci and Kaku adopted the boy for homosexual reasons. Now, he's been sitting on the line between agreeing and disagreeing and leaning towards the side that agrees. Luffy's closeness to Lucci was obvious to everyone, as was Lucci's attachment to him. But, as a fairly open-minded man, Franky didn't much care, just as long as there was no drama nor pain. So when Luffy talked about Lucci, the man simply gave a normal reply and drank out of his coke bottle.

Luffy looked around the bar before turning back to Franky. The two women that would usually follow Franky around were missing. "Where's Mozu and Kiwi?"

"Ah, they're getting the supplies along with the other little bros and sisters that wanted to help you," Franky answered while picking his robotic ear.

Luffy gasped and abruptly stood up. "I wanna get supplies too!"

Franky chuckled at Luffy's enthusiasm and stood up as well. "Let's go then lil bro!"

Luffy cheered and rushed out of the bar followed by an amused and equally chirpy Franky, but not before shoveling the rest of the food in his mouth and giving Blueno an I-owe-u-treasure note (that's usually given to Lucci and Kaku for them to pay).

* * *

Kaku walked around the streets of Water 7. After Lucci's sudden disappearance from the Dock, their manager made Kaku look for the absent man.

Kaku was surprised and a bit annoyed that Lucci had actually ditched his job, mostly surprised though. He never, ever does things like this. He's always been the perfect obedient little worker, no matter where.

After wandering for a few minutes and asking passersby if they've seen Lucci, he eventually encountered the cyborg nuisance of Water 7 followed by a group of children shouting Luffy's name. Kaku's brow arched as he approached them.

"Ah! Kaku-san!" One child exclaimed, bringing the group's attention to said man.

Kaku gave a smile and a small wave. "Hello children, and Franky." Franky gave a small grunt as a reply. "Are you having trouble with Luffy?"

"He disappeared an hour ago," Franky answered. "Have you seen him?"

Kaku hummed and brought his hand to his chin. "No, I haven't. Have you seen Lucci?" The group shook their heads and Kaku gave a nod of acceptance. "Okay then. I'll look out for both Luffy and Lucci. Good luck with your search."

Franky snorted. "We'll certainly need it. Alright little bros and sisters, onward!"

And the group marched on, shouting out Luffy's name and leaving Kaku behind.

Kaku smiled at how Luffy was able to influence these people and went on with finding Lucci.

Another few hours passed and Kaku returned to the Dock empty handed.

He had checked everywhere; other docks, around the city, even in the apartment, but Lucci wasn't anywhere. He was now walking around the Dock and trying to keep his irritation low as he looked for the manager to tell him that he couldn't find Lucci. He paused when he saw a couple of workers peeking behind an alley near the Dock.

Kaku curiously walked up to the group of three, noting the small smiles and little chuckles. One of them noticed him approaching and put a finger on his lips and shushed while motioning Kaku over. They backed away from the opening of the alley and Kaku arched a brow as he looked into the alley.

There, sitting against the wall of a building, were Lucci and Luffy, dozing away in the shade of the alley. Lucci's head was leaning on Luffy's, whose cheek was pressed against Lucci's drool covered shoulder. One of Luffy's adventurous legs had wandered on top of Lucci's crossed ones and Hattori was napping on Lucci's other shoulder, softly cooing his pigeon snore.

Kaku almost yelped when Lucci's eyes peeked open and gave him an extremely unnerving glare. He laughed nervously and backed away from the alley, but the other onlookers with him didn't sense his nervousness and chuckled along with him.

"Ah, let's give them some alone time," Kaku said while gesturing to the others to back away from the alley.

Kaku continued working around the Dock for another hour until he spotted the manager peeking into Lucci and Luffy's alley.

"Maa." Kaku rushed to the manager's side. "Sorry about this but is it fine if Lucci gets a break for a while?"

The manager gave a chortle and waved it off. "Yeh it's fine. It's a good thing Luffy got him to sleep, the man's attitude was bringing a sour mood to our Dock. Who knows what he'd be without that boy."

Kaku gave a thankful nod as the manager walked away while whistling a tune.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading c: and high five to everyone *double thumbs up* Especially you shirsong for being a super nice person and helping me even though you have better and more important things to do ;^; tears of thankfulness, thank you.


	9. Chapter 9: 2 Days After Pucci incident

A/N: a short little thing that takes place a bit after the Pucci incident of chapter 6, and Shirsong thank you so much for helping me! :D I hope you enjoy

* * *

2 Days After the Pucci incident

Lucci drank a mug of beer as he sat at the counter in Blueno's Bar. Several plates of food surrounded him but he made no move to eat them.

Blueno arched his brow and frowned at the sight of the food that he cooked not being eaten. "I cooked that food for it to be eaten, you know."

Lucci only grunted in response. Blueno's brows furrowed as he observed the silent man across from him. This mission has been the longest they've ever had so it's understandable that Lucci's grown casual over it, but it seems like Lucci's been dangerously comfortable with their environment lately.

"Lucci!"

Lucci turned around in his stool to face the teen who called out his name. Blueno looked up as well and they saw Luffy walk through the entrance and beam a bright smile at them. Luffy chirped a hello to Lucci and Hattori and the man replied to it with a nod.

"You're late," Lucci said as Luffy walked over to him.

"Maa, sorry!" Luffy laughed sheepishly and smiled at Lucci once he settled himself down on the stool next to him.

Lucci nodded to the short and unfelt apology and pushed several of the uneaten plates of slightly cooled yet good food toward Luffy.

"Oooh! Thanks Lucci!" Luffy brightly smiled and dug into his food. Soon enough, piles of empty plates surrounded the boy.

Blueno cleaned the dishes that Luffy finished in a blink of an eye while watching the two males in front of him. He's heard of the Pucci incident. Almost everyone in Water 7 has, which was quite a feat since it's such a large city. People have been gossipping over it ever since the news spread from Pucci to Water 7. It all started with rumors in the sea train, and then it spread and evolved throughout the citizens of Water 7. No one can shut up about it. Even now there were citizens in the bar, murmuring and staring like hawks at the two males.

Lucci was able to ignore the inquiring and nosy stares while Luffy just didn't care enough to notice them. Neither of them much cared about what the public thought about them, they just needed to make sure that the long term mission wouldn't be compromised. Lucci didn't like how several men stared at Luffy with a new light in their eyes, though.

He gave an unnerving side-stare to the males of the bar that had their attention devoted to Luffy, and they scoffed and turned away, sweat running down their foreheads and chills wracking their spines. Then he turned his eyes to Luffy, ignoring the pathetic glares.

"Why's your shirt wet?" Lucci asked. Luffy paused in his eating and glanced down at his shirt as if finally noticing that it was wet.

"Oh," Luffy said as if surprised. He pinched his shirt and peeled the fabric from his chest. "Hm... not important." He shrugged and went back to eating.

The back of the shirt stuck to Luffy's back, accenting the curve of his lower back and deceivingly delicate looking shoulder blades. It caused undesirable attention from some males, especially when Luffy's shorts hung lower than usual, not that Luffy noticed the attention. Lucci's eyes narrowed and fell down to Luffy's pants, which were also drenched. Water dripped down all of Luffy's body, from his legs and hair and arms. He most likely fell into a canal, again. Lucci couldn't take his eyes off of Luffy for even a day.

Lucci's brow arched when he saw Luffy furrow his eyebrows and frown while wiggling his upper torso. His eyes fell down to the hand that was picking and pinching at the wet shirt instead of shoving food into the boy's mouth like the other hand was. Luffy paused in his eating and casually slid both his hands down to grab the bottom hem of his shirt, and he started lifting it _up_. Lucci surged forward as Luffy slid up the bottom of his shirt, exposing a strip of skin before Lucci stopped him.

"What are you doing," Lucci hissed, his hand tightly grasping one of the hands that was holding up the wet shirt and exposing some of Luffy's smooth, well toned lower torso. Lucci knew that the revealed hip bones and toned, slim muscles and the fine curves of Luffy's back definitely attracted attention.

Luffy's brows furrowed and his expression showed that he truly thought that he was doing nothing wrong, but he dropped his shirt anyway. "But it's uncomfy, and other guys always take off their shirt when it's wet."

Lucci shook his head and pulled the soaked shirt down to its original place and puffing it up, making sure no skin was exposed and that the shirt didn't stick while glaring at the few men who dared to slightly scoot up in their seats in interest.

One of Luffy's arms was grasped in Lucci's hand, and the man pulled it to himself. Luffy looked up curiously as Lucci inspected the arm. There were several red marks that littered the arm, and when he looked at the other arm he saw similar marks. He counted three red marks on both arms from what he could see and Luffy continued eating his food while staring at Lucci and his hostaged arm. The marks were already fading, but something still used enough force to make an actual mark on the rubber skin.

"Ah, those aren't important either," Luffy said and pulled his arm back to himself. Lucci let the arm slip out of his hand and let Luffy use both arms to shovel food inside himself.

After a while, Luffy started talking about random things that spontaneously popped out of his mouth and Lucci silently thought and listened with his chin cupped in his palm and legs crossed, both of them ignoring how everyone in the bar focused on them and whispered to each other. Lucci looked up at the entrance when he smelt a familiar scent nearing the bar, and when Luffy noticed Lucci's movement he turned to the entrance too.

"Ah! Hey Paulie!" Luffy enthusiastically waved at the man who entered the bar.

"Hey Luffy, and Lucci! There you are," Paulie said as he walked into the bar, same old cigar between his teeth and flame jacket that suspiciously had some wet spots on its arms and front. Pauli paused when everyone in the bar gave a glance at him and then finally went back to their own business. He nervously sucked on his cigar at the attention and the awkward atmosphere as he walked towards Luffy and Lucci. "Uh, all the foremen are needed with the galleon since the rest of the workers are focused on the smaller jobs. It's gotten pretty busy."

"Aw, it's time for Lucci work already?" Luffy whined. "I didn't even get to finish all the food."

Pauliee chuckled at Luffy's usual desire for food and lifted his hand to pet his head. He paused and gave a look to Lucci before bringing his hand back to smother a cough.

"Ahm, you can always come help us if you want, Luffy," Paulie said.

Luffy shrugged. "Nah, I'm gonna be with Franky today."

"Why?" Lucci asked.

Luffy just shrugged again and continued eating his food. Lucci intensely stared at Luffy for a while until he shook his head and stood up.

"Change your clothes, at _home_." Luffy nodded and Lucci shuffled his hand through Luffy's hair before nodding at Paulie to signal that he was ready to go.

Luffy waved to Lucci and Paulie until they walked out the bar and then he went back to eating all the food. When every plate was empty he silently smiled up at Blueno and slammed some beli on the counter. Blueno picked up the money and he along with everyone else in the bar watched Luffy's retreating back until the doors swung closed behind him.

* * *

The sky was dark and so were the empty streets and shimmering canals. It wasn't actually that late, the season made the days shorter and the nights longer. It's probably only 7 pm, but it was dark so most people opted to stay inside except for a few adults and rebellious children.

Luffy passed by sleeping seabulls and flickering streetlights as he walked home. He waved at the few people he passed, and some of them waved back like usual and some of them didn't. It didn't really matter to Luffy.

It was pretty fun destroying stuff with Franky's group, but doing it for the entire day can get tiring. He really needed to recharge with a bunch of food. Sadly, he only had enough money to buy some sandwiches. He yawned and stretched his back, smacking his lips and sticking his finger in his ear while holding a bag of sandwiches in his other hand.

He paused when he heard a shuffling noise. He turned his head to the left, where there was a dark alley with silhouettes shuffling in the blackness. One of the silhouettes were tossing three pebbles up, catching them in one hand, then tossing it up again to repeat the process. Luffy hummed and continued walking, thinking that whoever in the alley wasn't worth his time and ignoring the sound of several pairs of footsteps following him.

He heard a snicker and a woosh of air, and he was getting really tired of dealing with these kinds of things. Those rocks are annoying, but the ones who threw them were the most annoying. So he turned around with his hand up, ready to catch the pebbles that were flying towards him to crush them into smithereens in his palm, but there were no pebbles.

When Luffy looked at the boy with the pebbles, he saw a man holding the boy's outstretched arm. The three pebbles dropped from the boy's twitching hand and landed on the floor with little clacks.

"Scram!" Paulie roughly unhandled the arm and waved his arms around until the group of kids scurried away.

Luffy dropped his hand and cocked his head at Pauli. "Thanks Paulie, but I could've taken care of it myself."

"Yeah I know you can handle yourself just fine Luffy, but if they pushed you in the water again and I wasn't there..."

"Eh," Luffy shrugged, "it won't happen again."

Paulie nodded uncertainly and stepped on his fallen cigar before walking after Luffy when the boy started walking again. "Okay well you better make sure it doesn't happen again. And I'll walk with you, just in case."

Luffy shrugged, at least he has company now.

Paulie walked alongside Luffy and a shiver crawled down his spine. He had a feeling like he had eyes watching his every move, and he can't help but have a weird feeling at the pit of his stomach. He scoped the area around them and his eyes landed at the sight of a suspicious group of men in an alley across the canal, their eyes subtly following Luffy. They didn't look like Water 7 citizens, most likely pirates from how they're dressed and their rugged appearance.

"How was the big ship?" Luffy asked as he kicked a random pebble in front of him and approached it as it rolled away.

Paulie snapped his attention back to Luffy. "The galleon?" Paulie said and rubbed his neck. "Mn, good enough. It can probably set sail after we give it another coating, the last one started peeling."

Luffy gave an "Oh" and kicked the pebble again. Paulie gave a side glance to the unusually silent boy and saw Luffy's droopy eyes and swaying body. He grabbed one of the boy's shoulders to steady him.

"Uh, you sleepy? If you want we can stop by my house to catch a nap since it's closer," Paulie asked.

Luffy gave a sleepy giggle and looked up with amused yet dazed eyes. "Shishi, no thanks pervert man."

Paulie's face flushed at the nickname that he hasn't heard in a long time. He grumbled and looked away, but he still kept a hand on Luffy's shoulder to help him walk.

After a while, Luffy ended up leaning against the man's side, his eyes almost completely closed as he depended on Paulie for support. Paulie's face had a slight red tinge but he didn't take advantage of the situation.

They finally reached Luffy's doorstep and the boy gave a sleepy thank you to the man. Paulie told Luffy to stay safe and to watch out and the boy bobbed his head up and down before entering his apartment.

Paulie let out a sigh and turned away from the closed door to make his way to his own home, grumbling and adorning a slightly blushed face the entire way. He lit another cigar in his mouth and soon found himself slowing his pace down by the alley that held the suspicious looking men that were looking at Luffy earlier.

But.. there were no men in the alley. Paulie scratched his head and looked around. He was sure that that same barrel and tangerine box were next to the very alley that used to hold the men. Another puff of smoke escaped his mouth and he walked on, never seeing the bloodied bodies in the darkest corner of the alley.

"Kaku. Sandwiches."

Kaku looked up from his seat at the living room couch and smiled up at the boy who drowsily shuffled toward him. "Maa, hello Luffy. Oh, what are these?"

Luffy plopped the bag of sandwiches down onto the coffee table, and before Kaku could reach forward to look in the bag he suddenly had a body shove itself onto his lap.

"Sandwishes," Luffy mumbled into his shoulder before only snores escaped his lips.

Kaku awkwardly held his arms up and his hands twitched in the air. This was... an unexpected predicament. And it would not be mentioned to Lucci.

After a while of listening to Luffy's soft snores, he eventually got used to having the deadweight of the warm body settled on his lap and he finally let his arms down to hesitantly wrap around the sleeping boy.

This would definitely not be mentioned to Lucci.

Luffy opened his eyes to see that he was on the couch, all the lights off and a blanket on top of him. Alone and in the darkness of the living room, he tried to remember whether or not he actually fell asleep on the couch and then vaguely remembered passing out on Kaku.

He shrugged and snuggled his face into his pillow. It sorta smelled like copper and oak, a familiar scent that somewhat describes Lucci, and then there's the smell of laundry soap but he mainly focused on the other scent.

Luffy sighed and buried his nose into the pillow. He turned to his side, the pillow still held tightly against him, and he spent the night staring at the wall of dark room, like he did last night. He'd usually have a lap to lay his head on or a man laying his head on his lap, but this time he was all alone on the couch in the darkness of the living room. Sure it wasn't every night that he'd spend in the living room with Lucci, but it felt nice to know that Lucci would be here if he woke up.

* * *

A/N: Aw Luffy was bullied and molesters are on the loose. I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading c: every fave/follow/review is appreciated :D


	10. Chapter 10: BIRTHDAY CRACK

A/N: I dunno if this is a oneshot or not but it doesn't contribute to the story because it's just a little sidestory, and it has nothing to do with the plot. It isn't involved in the story and the story is at a variable point late the timeline. Which just means that I dunno when this little sidestory happens but it's during around the setting where Luffy and Lucci _kinda _have a _bit _of romance going on. This chapter is really just a present to Shirsong! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY WONDERFUL FRIEND!

Warning: CRACK, everything is crack and failures

* * *

"When's your birthday? C'mon tell me, pleaaaase?"

Lucci refrained the urge to shove a piece of cloth into Luffy's speaking hole. Luffy has been asking that same question for about a week now. He would persist, even when Lucci kept on ignoring him, and it seemed like it would never end until Lucci answered. But, since he plans on never answering, he'll have to find another way to end the questions. Shoving a piece of cloth into Luffy's mouth seemed like the best idea at the moment.

All week, Luffy's been annoying them about birthdays. It all started a few days after Luffy's own birthday, which was celebrated with an unplanned party in the shipyard. It was unplanned because Luffy just showed up and began jumping around and shouting and infecting other people with his excitement, which evolved into a rather wild party after some workers brought in some food and alcohol. Even citizens became attracted to the noise, and soon the shipyard was a full out rave of meat sticks and beer. Lucci had to keep watch on Luffy, who seemed determined to drink some sake, but overall had a decent time standing around and being slightly less gloomy in the festive atmosphere.

The festivities must've reminded Luffy that his guardians probably also have birthday, but the party quickly took over his attention and he forgot about the notion for a month.

One fateful evening, he finally remembered! Which was odd since Luffy's past thoughts rarely ever got remembered–the boy's mind was a bottomless pit. After remembering, he quickly dropped whatever he was doing and dropped a surprise visit to the shipyard where Lucci was asked about his birthday. Lucci ignored the question, and then the boy kept on asking for the rest of the week. The hyperactive teen would sometimes stop when he got bored, but Luffy eventually came back to the shipyard with that same question and wouldn't leave for an hour or so.

"Luffy!" Lucci almost sighed in relief when he heard Kaku's voice. Luffy's attention had finally released him and now Kaku was the center of it.

"Please, let Lucci do his work." Luffy turned to Kaku as he approached the duo. Lucci ignored both of them in favor of continuing his polishing on the cannon that he's been working on for an annoying Luffy-filled hour.

"KAKU! I have a question!" Luffy bounded away from Lucci and jumped on Kaku's shoulders. Kaku, unable to escape, gravely nodded and wearily waited for the questions to come.

"So, when's your birthday?"

Kaku hummed and tapped his fingertips together when he heard the question. He had his fair share of that question over the week, and he was having a tougher time ignoring it than Lucci.

Lucci listened to their conversation while seeming like he was completely focused on his work, wondering how Kaku would respond to the question. He knew that Kaku, with his softer heart that had gotten soggier with Luffy's presence in their lives, was struggling with refusing to answer Luffy's question. It was obvious to both men that the kid was asking them because he genuinely wanted to know more about them and celebrate the days that they were born, but, as Lucci firmly believes, it was none of his goddamn business.

"Ahh, hm." Kaku continued to stall using hums while Luffy looked expectantly at Kaku.

Both men were surprised when Luffy suddenly made a loud and annoyed groan. "How come you guys never tell me your birthdays? I told you mine!"

"That's because you wanted to celebrate your birthday. We, however, don't want to." Luffy glared at Lucci as the man continued to stroke the cannon with a cloth.

"That's crazy!"

"You're crazy."

Luffy pouted and attempted to give a scathing glare at the man, but no matter how much Luffy tried, he would never look threatening with that immature (albeit cute) pout.

"You're the crazy one! And Hato too!" And with that, Luffy stuck his tongue out at them, huffed and stomped away with a frustrated expression, not once looking back at the offended squawk from the pigeon. Lucci sighed in relief, finally able to work in much needed quiet. That kid should learn how to mind his own goddamn business.

"Uh, I'm gonna go do my work now. Keep up the good work," Kaku mumbled with a small smile and walked away. Lucci gave a small hum in response and went on with polishing the cannon, cherishing the silence.

* * *

Lucci was a very patient man. Very few things could penetrate his iron wall of patience and self-control. Unfortunately for him, the single person who could ever shred his patience into little tiny confetti pieces was living in his own home.

That same person was covered in white powder and soot, trying to seem innocent while whistling and rocking on his heals, eyes flitting around the messed up kitchen and never meeting Lucci's own furious gaze.

"Luffy." Lucci spoke vehemently, his glare focused on Luffy's nervous form.

Luffy gasped and looked up at Lucci as if he just noticed the man was standing there, his eyes wide and hands linked behind him while his lips formed that odd pinch that he only did when he was lying. "Ah, Lucci! I came into the kitchen to get some food and I saw these big, scary monkeys making bombs in the kitchen! I tried my best to beat them up, but one of their bombs exploded and then they escaped through the window!"

Lucci didn't believe that for one second because one, the idea was absolutely outrageous and unbelievable, and two, there weren't any monkeys who could build bombs. There weren't even any monkeys in Water 7.

Lucci tched and smacked the back of Luffy's head, causing the boy to make a small 'oof' as a small cloud of flour wafted off of him.

"The only monkey in all of Water 7 is you, you idiot," Lucci hissed. "And that lie was the most preposterous one you've ever made."

Luffy frowned, "But I only wanted to make you and Kaku a cake!"

Lucci shook his head. "You don't need to bake a cake, especially when you don't even know how to do it. Take a shower."

"But I wanna bake," Luffy whined but obeyed, dejectedly shuffling away to the bathroo.

Lucci sighed and lifted his glare from Luffy to look around the kitchen. Streaks of burns stained the oven and the counters next to it. It would be a miracle if the oven was still working after what seemed like a bomb went off inside it. There was a mess of ingredients for cake strewn about the countertop, broken eggs and spilt milk littering the poor surface.

"Woah," Kaku entered the kitchen, wide and surprised eyes looking around the kitchen while Lucci was cleaning out the oven.

"Luffy?" Kaku asked as Lucci stood up from the oven, receiving a nod as answer. Kaku sighed and grabbed a washcloth to help the other clean the kitchen.

* * *

A week has passed and Luffy was suspiciously silent. And absent. Mostly during the day, though, so Luffy was still able to do their little sleeping routine at night.

When Lucci woke up that morning, he woke up with a startling realization that he was alone on the couch. Luffy was already gone. He had actually woken up before the man and was able to sneak out of the house. Lucci would have been proud of how Luffy was able to sneak out if it weren't for the fact that his senses had dulled enough during sleep that the boy could sneak away. Luffy was able to get him into a very deep sleep, it seems.

When he sat up from the couch, he spotted a piece of paper on the table. At first glance he already knew that it was made by Luffy from its chicken sketch writing. He picked it up with his brows in a frown.

_-Dont go to work! GO to Bullnos Bar! You better be there!_

_P.s MAKE SURE KAKU COMES TOO!_

And the rest of the note was a lot of exclamation marks, and Lucci could see the excitement increase with every exclamation mark. And then a big crudely drawn happy face. Well. That's nice.

He assumed that Luffy meant Blueno's Bar, and he honestly did not look forward to going. Of course a surprise party was going to happen. Why else would Luffy be gone for an entire week if not to work on a gigantic and noisy party?

But Luffy actually put an effort for them, and it was willingly. Luffy rarely gave his energy for other people of they weren't people that he very much cared about, and Lucci felt a bit lighter knowing that he (and Kaku) were part of that special category of people.

Lucci sighed and got up, he had to get Kaku up and get ready for going to Blueno's Bar.

* * *

Lucci and Kaku now stood in front of the entrance.

Kaku nervously glanced at the man next to him and waited for him to move. After a while, Lucci and the pigeon on his shoulder sighed simultaneously and the man pushed his arms forward, swinging the doors open and preparing for the loud "SURPRISE!"

But nothing came.

The bar was its usual self. Some customers mingling at some tables, Blueno cleaning some mugs, and a boy with a red shirt and shorts sitting on one of the stalls.

The raven head lifted at Lucci and Kaku's entrance and a giant smile invaded most of his face.

"Lucci! Kaku! Finally you came! Geez, you guys take forever. You guys must've used the toilet. Ossans take a while to use the toilet, don't they?"

Luffy bounded towards the two men, who were at a loss at the lack of noise and people and raves. Where was everybody? Where was the confetti and the colorful lights?

Their wrists were suddenly grasped and the two men were dragged towards the bar counter with surprising strength from the boy.

They were pushed down onto stools, and in front of them were packages, the two of which were wrapped in paper by unskilled hands. It was literally just a newspaper with a string tied around it to keep it together and be a failure of an impersonation of a ribbon. The rest of the packages were smaller and had a bit more neatness to their wrappings.

"Look! I got these for you guys!" Luffy exclaimed as he made a dramatic wave of his arms at the packages.

"Uh, Luffy? What is all this?" Kaku asked the boy while pointing at the packages in front of him.

Luffy rolled his eyes. "Presents, of course! I got them so you better like them! Paulie and the others also got you some stuff too, but I gave the best presents! Also you guys don't gotta go to work for a week 'cause I got Berg-ossan to give you guys a vacation. I'm awesome, aren't I?" Luffy leaned towards Blueno, waiting for the anticipating nod in agreement. A joyous laugh escaped the boy after getting an approving answer and then he patted the two men towards the packages.

"Well! Open them!"

The two men glanced at each other as if willing the other to open their present first, but Luffy quickly lost his patience and squeezed in between the two so that he could reach the presents. "Gosh you guys are so sloooooow! I'll open them!"

Luffy quickly ripped the newspaper off the large package in front of Kaku and shoved the revealed box onto the man's chest.

"Now open the box!"

Kaku complied and lifted the cover off the box. Inside of it was a lot of sandwiches. The box was filled to the brim with his favorite sandwich. Of course Luffy would think that food was the best present in the world.

"Oh, thank you, Luffy! These are great!" Kaku smiled at the boy, who seemed very, very happy at the reaction.

"Of course it is! Oh! And there's some new running shoes somewhere under there because the ones you have right now are old and dirty and gross. Now you can run more! I wanted to get you a giraffe but they didn't have any at the store."

Kaku's surprised face was ignored in favor of ripping the newspaper off of the package in front of Lucci. He shoved it into Lucci's chest and looked up at the man with expectant eyes.

The package was smaller than Kaku's, which means that Luffy probably hadn't stuffed it with a bunch of food like Kaku's. He lifted the cover and saw some earplugs inside of the box.

At Lucci's slight frown of probably confusion, Luffy laughed and said, "Earplugs to muff the sound! It's pretty stupid that you hadn't already gotten these but now you do and now you can sleep and stuff!"

Lucci looked down at the earplugs and picked two up. He placed them in his ears to test them out, his hair falling around them and hiding them from view. Not all sounds had been blocked, but the static sounds that he found himself getting used to had dimmed. There were no more sounds of splashing water or civilians chatting on the street or seagulls screaming their vocal cords to shreds. The sounds of the bar had no background sound, and it felt surreal to only hear the clinking of mugs and quiet conversations without the loud background sounds. He was able to appreciate the silence behind the noises that were in his vicinity. Blissful.

"You like 'em? Of course you do! Open the other stuff!" Luffy pushed the other packages towards the two men and they got to opening their other gifts.

They received chocolate, wine, a pack of cigars, a small hat for Hattori, and a fucking condom (with a note from Paulie saying that Lucci seriously had to get laid and get that stick out of his ass). Lucci immediately crumpled the note and hid the condom away from Luffy's view. He didn't feel like explaining the function of it to the curious boy.

Luffy clapped his hands and stood at the center of the bar.

"Now is the fun part!" Luffy exclaimed with a dramatic flair. "Bring in. The CAKE!"

The doors slammed open to reveal a large, large cake. It was about a head taller than Luffy. The cake was nicely decorated and all, and it did look delicious, but the size of the cake was suspiciously the perfect size for someone to hide inside.

And, of course, Franky, with all his spandex glory, exploded out of the top of the cake in a cheap bunny costume.

Both Luffy and Franky made a "tadaa!" at Franky's revelation, frosting exploding everywhere to drop down like sweet snow. The latex of Franky's bunny suit made squeaking sounds as the cyborg posed in several macho positions.

Lucci and Kaku's faces looked like they had just witnessed the most horrible terror they had ever witnessed, which was saying a lot because they had seen very terrifying stuff in their career. Basically, their faces were expressions of the question: "_What the fuck?"_

Then suddenly the bar was flooded with people coming in. Workers and other people who were apparently in on the plan had rushed into the bar and made a bunch of cheery noises.

"Happy super-belated birthday!"

And then the party commenced. Lucci and Kaku were still frozen, mostly traumatized by what they just witnessed, while Luffy jumped onto the cake debris, which... wasn't actually a cake.

"Luffy, this isn't even a cake, this is just a bunch of cardboard with frosting on it," said Kaku, and though he was still in shock he was able to speak on auto-pilot. Indeed, the cake was only composed of pieces of cardboard shaped as a cake and a layer of frosting and cake decorations on the cardboard pieces.

"Frosting's the most important part!" Luffy said around a mouthful of frosting. "And I thought you guys wouldn't want to eat a cake that aniki was in."

Kaku nodded, agreeing that he would not want to eat a cake that was in such a close proximity to Franky's spandex. Franky just laughed out loud and joined Luffy in his frosting consumption. The party went on around them, people mingling and drinking and eating. Blueno was busy cooking more food in the kitchen and Kaku had been pulled into the crowd while Lucci stayed near the counter.

"Hey!" Paulie walked up to Lucci and nudged him with his elbow. "Gonna make use of my gift ta'night? I know a couple of ladies and even some men that would love to use that with you." At Lucci's growl Paulie just chuckled and looked towards the mess of cake frosting and the boy filling himself with the white substance. "Or maybe you'll wanna use it on someone special?"

Lucci harshly pushed away from Paulie and took the condom out of his pocket before shoving it into Paulie's chest. "Here, you can have it back. I won't be using it."

Paulie shook his head and pushed the condom back to Lucci. "No, I insist. I gifted this to you in hope get that stick out your bum."

Lucci pushed it back, leading them into a fight of pushing the little square pack back and forth, trying to get the other to accept the condom, tendons and muscles straining in the competition of the strongest. But suddenly, the condom slipped and was flung across the room, right on top of an innocent raven head.

"Eh?" Luffy pulled the small square packet off his head. "Mah? What's this thing?"

Lucci and Pauli looked in horror as the boy looked down at the small square pack with an indent of a circle on it.

"Oh!" Franky surged forward and grabbed the small packet, his bunny suit making a high squeak with every movement. He then, to the further horror of the two men watching, ripped the pack open and pulled out the circular piece of plastic. "... is to make balloon snakes!"

Franky took in a large breath and blew into the condom, inflating the plastic and creating a balloon from it. When he was finished he tied it up, drew a snake face with a marker he keeps, and gave the inflated condom friend to Luffy.

"Here ya go! Your very own balloon snake friend!" Franky said.

"Wooow! It's so fat!" Luffy exclaimed with stars in his eyes. It was true, the balloon was a bit wide and on the top was a tip that wasn't as stretched as the rest.

The entire room was filled with laughter as Luffy introduced his condom friend to everyone. Lucci almost groaned at how inappropriate and disgusting that was. He gave a scathing glare to Paulie, who was trying not to laugh at the scene in fear of inducing more of Lucci's wrath.

"Uh, I'm gonna go, uh, eat." Paulie quickly slipped away from Lucci and into the safety of the crowd. Lucci sighed and leaned against the counter, saving his beating on Paulie for later. He watched people sing and drink and eat while he himself watched silently and calmly.

His arm was suddenly grasped and he looked down at the frosting covered hand.

"C'mon poopy pants!" Luffy said before dragging the reluctant Lucci to the dance floor.

Overall, Lucci had somewhat of a decent time, and Luffy never figured out who popped his inflated condom friend, nevering seeing the sharp claw that quickly swiped at it when Luffy was turned away from Lucci.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed your journey through crack, and Happy (sorta belated) Birthday to Shirsong and everyone else whose birthday is today! And happy super-belated birthday to everyone else!

Like comment and subscribe for lucciluffy birthday sex!


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